The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between is a memoir by Hisham Matar that was first published in June 2016.

[4] The memoir centers on Matar's return to his native Libya in 2012 to search for the truth behind the 1990 disappearance of his father, a prominent political dissident of the Gaddafi regime.

The memoir follows Matar's return to Libya in 2012, following Gaddafi's death, to find out what happened to his father.

[13][14] Writing for The Guardian, writers Julian Barnes, Alan Hollinghurst, Blake Morrison, Rupert Thomson, Lucy Hughes-Hallett and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie named The Return as one of their favorite books of 2016, with Adichie noting that it "moved [her] to tears and taught [her] about love and home.

[7] It also won the inaugural 2017 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award[6] and the 2016 Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize.