Abdulrazak Gurnah Books

Salman Rushdie is a major contemporary writer, who engages with some of the vital issues of our times: migrancy, postcolonialism, religious authoritarianism. This Companion offers a comprehensive introduction to his entire oeuvre. Part I provides thematic readings of Rushdie and his work, with chapters on how Bollywood films are intertextual with the fiction, the place of family and gender in the work, the influence of English writing and reflections on the fatwa. Part II discusses Rushdie's importance for postcolonial writing and provides detailed interpretations of his fiction. In one volume, this book provides a stimulating introduction to the author and his work in a range of expert essays and readings. With its detailed chronology of Rushdie's life and a comprehensive bibliography of further reading, this volume will be invaluable to undergraduates studying Rushdie and to the general reader interested in his work.

[A] captivating storyteller, with a voice both lyrical and mordant, and an oeuvre haunted by memory and loss. His intricate novels of arrival and departure . reveal, with flashes of acerbic humour, the lingering ties that bind continents, and how competing versions of history collide Guardian

'One of the world's most prominent postcolonial writers ... He has consistently and with great compassion penetrated the effects of colonialism and its effects on the lives of uprooted and migrating individuals' Anders Olsson, chairman of the Nobel Committee Delivered in London on 7 December 2021, 'Writing' is the lecture of the Nobel Laureate in Literature, Abdulrazak Gurnah. Collected here with three further essays, it explores his coming-of-age, his early experiences in 1960s Britain, the narratives of oceans, his lifelong love affair with reading, and the power of writing to subvert the stories that have been handed to us. Generous, funny and wise, this collection is the perfect introduction to the storyteller described as 'one of Africa's most important living writers'; whose work, now spanning four decades, continues to spin wonder and magic while offering penetrating insight into exile, migration and homecoming. 'In book after book, he guides us through seismic historic moments and devastating societal ruptures while gently outlining what it is that keeps those families, friendships and loving spaces intact' Maaza Mengiste 'A wondrous writer' Philippe Sands

The new novel from the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature - 'a maestro' (Guardian). A captivating story of the intertwined lives of three young people coming-of-age in postcolonial East Africa Selected as a book to look out for in 2025 by the Guardian, Observer, Irish Times and BBC _________________________________________________________ What are we given, and what do we have to take for ourselves? It is the 1990s. Growing up in Zanzibar, three very different young people - Karim, Fauzia and Badar - are coming of age, and dreaming of great possibilities in their young nation. But for Badar, an uneducated servant boy who has never known his parents, it seems as if all doors are closed. Brought into a lowly position in a great house in Dar es Salaam, Badar finds the first true home of his life - and the friendship of Karim, the young man of the house. Even when a shattering false accusation sees Badar sent away, Karim and Fauzia refuse to turn away from their friend. But as the three of them take their first steps in love, infatuation, work and parenthood, their bond is tested - and Karim is tempted into a betrayal that will change all of their lives forever.

A masterwork by the 2021 Nobel Prize winner in Literature, in which the consequences of an illicit love affair reverberate from the heyday of the British empire to the aftermath of African independence Early one morning in 1899, an Englishman named Martin Pearce stumbles out of the desert into an East African coastal town and collapses at the feet of Hassanali, a local shopkeeper. When Hassanali’s sister, the beautiful and disillusioned Rehana, nurses Pearce back to health, a love affair sparks, with consequences that will ripple decades into the future, when another clandestine affair bursts into flame, with equally unforeseen and dramatic consequences. In this devastating and ingeniously spun tale, the Nobelist Abdulrazak Gurnah brilliantly dramatizes the personal and political legacies of colonialism.

A searing tale of a young woman discovering her troubled family history and cultural past Dottie Badoura Fatma Balfour finds solace amidst the squalor of her childhood by spinning warm tales of affection about her beautiful names. But she knows nothing of their origins, and little of her family history - or the abuse her ancestors suffered as they made their home in Britain. At seventeen, she takes on the burden of responsibility for her brother and sister and is obsessed with keeping the family together. However, as Sophie, lumpen yet voluptuous, drifts away, and the confused Hudson is absorbed into the world of crime, Dottie is forced to consider her own needs. Building on her fragmented, tantalising memories, she begins to clear a path through life, gradually gathering the confidence to take risks, to forge friendships and to challenge the labels that have been forced upon her.

An extraordinary depiction of the life of an immigrant, as he struggles to come to terms with the horror of his past and the meaning of his pilgrimage to England

On a late November afternoon Saleh Omar arrives at Gatwick Airport from Zanzibar, a far away island in the Indian Ocean. With him he has a small bag in which there lies his most precious possession - a mahogany box containing incense. He used to own a furniture shop, have a house and be a husband and father. Now he is an asylum seeker from paradise; silence his only protection. Meanwhile Latif Mahmud, someone intimately connected with Saleh's past, lives quietly alone in his London flat. When Saleh and Latif meet in an English seaside town, a story is unravelled. It is a story of love and betrayal, of seduction and of possession, and of a people desperately trying to find stability amidst the maelstrom of their times.

A man returns to his native Zanzibar after years of exile in England, and must come to terms with the changes both in him and in his childhood home.

BY THE WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE 2021 SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION 2021 LONGLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE 2021 "Riveting and heartbreaking ... A compelling novel, one that gathers close all those who were meant to be forgotten, and refuses their erasure." --Maaza Mengiste, Guardian "A brilliant and important book for our times, by a wondrous writer." --Philippe Sands, New Statesman, Books of the Year While he was still a little boy, Ilyas was stolen from his parents by the German colonial troops. After years away, fighting in a war against his own people, he returns to his village to find his parents gone, and his sister Afiya given away. Another young man returns at the same time. Hamza was not stolen for the war, but sold into it; he has grown up at the right hand of an officer whose protection has marked him life. With nothing but the clothes on his back, he seeks only work and security - and the love of the beautiful Afiya. As fate knots these young people together, as they live and work and fall in love, the shadow of a new war on another continent lengthens and darkens, ready to snatch them up and carry them away... "Rarely in a lifetime can you open a book and find that reading it encapsulates the enchanting qualities of a love affair ... One scarcely dares breathe while reading it for fear of breaking the enchantment."--The Times