That I should move to Manhattan in my fortieth year, as Libya was ripping itself apart, and for this to take place on the 1st of September, the day when, back in 1969, a young captain named Muammar Qaddafi deposed King Idris and many of the significant features of my life—where I live, the language in which I write, the language I am using now to write this—were set in motion: all this made it difficult to escape the idea that there was some kind of divine will at work.