My Father and Qaddafi

Libyan-American Jihan K makes her debut with a self-biographical and relentlessly gripping search for the truth about—and the memory of—a father who mysteriously disappeared.

Mansur Rashid Kikhia was foreign minister in Qaddafi’s government and a UN ambassador. He defected and became a leading figure in the opposition, with prospects of becoming the country’s leader. But during a conference in Egypt in 1993, which he attended after traveling from his exile home in France, he vanished without a trace. Jihan K, who was six years old at the time, weaves a hypnotic tapestry of fragmentary memories, archival footage, and contemporary interviews. In order to find her own identity and tell the truth about global politics and her father—who was found 19 years later in a freezer near Qaddafi’s palace. And about a tough-as-steel mother who refused to give up.

• Camilla Larsson