NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • A “masterly” (The New York Times, Editors’ Choice), “riveting” (The Atlantic) novel of friendship, family, and the unthinkable realities of exile, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Return“A profound celebration of the sustaining power of friendship, of the ways we mold ourselves against the indentations of those few people whom fate presses against us.”—The Washington PostONE OF THE WASHINGTON POST AND PUBLISHER WEEKLY’S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, Time, NPR, BookPageWINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION • WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD • LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTIONOne evening, as a young boy growing up in Benghazi, Khaled hears a bizarre short story read aloud on the radio, about a man being eaten alive by a cat, and has the sense that his life has been changed forever. Obsessed by t