When Qaddafi took my father, he placed me in a space not much bigger than the cell Father was in. I paced back and forth, anger in one direction, hatred in the other, until I could feel my insides grow small and hard. And, because I was young, and hatred and anger are a young man’s emotions, I tricked myself into thinking the transformation was good, that it was akin to progress, a sign of vigor and strength. That was how I spent most of my twenties, until, in the autumn of 2002, twelve years on from when I lost my father, I found myself standing at the edge of the Pont d’Arcole in Paris,
...more
