Most Popular Books by Abdulrazak Gurnah

Shortlisted for the 1994 Booker and Whitbread Prizes, this book is set in the decade before World War I, in the garden of a merchant''s house on the coast of East Africa. Yusuf is 12 when he is sold into the service of the rich, perfumed merchant whom he has always known as uncle Aziz.

One day, long before the troubles, he slipped away without saying a word to anyone and never went back. And then another day, forty-three years later, he collapsed just inside the front door of his house in a small English town. It was late in the day when it happened, on his way home after work, but it was also late in the day altogether. He had left things for too long and there was no one to blame for it but himself. Abbas has never told anyone about his past-before he was a sailor on the high seas, before he met his wife Maryam outside a Boots in Exeter, before they settled into a quiet life in Norwich with their children, Jamal and Hanna. Now, at the age of sixty-three, he suffers a collapse that renders him bedbound and unable to speak about things he thought he would one day have to. Jamal and Hanna have grown up and gone out into the world. They were both born in England but cannot shake a sense of apartness. Hanna calls herself Anna now, and has just moved to a new city to be near her boyfriend. She feels the relationship is headed somewhere serious, but the words have not yet been spoken out loud. Jamal, the listener of the family, moves into a student house and is captivated by a young woman with dark-blue eyes and her own, complex story to tell. Abbas''s illness forces both children home, to the dark silences of their father and the fretful capability of their mother Maryam, who began life as a foundling and has never thought to find herself, until now.

Writing at the peak of his powers, Abdulrazak Gurnah gives us in Desertion a spellbinding novel of forbidden love and cultural upheaval, with consequences powerfully reverberating through three generations and across continents--from the heyday of the British empire to the aftermath of African independence. Early one morning in 1899, in a small, dilapidated town along the coast of Mombassa, a Muslim man, Hassanali, sets out for a mosque but doesn''t get there. Out of the desert stumbles an Englishman who collapses at Hassanali''s feet: Martin Pearce--writer, traveler, something of an Orientalist. Hassanali cares for Pearce until the Englishman is taken to the home of colonial officer Frederick Turner to recuperate. When Pearce returns to thank his Good Samaritan, he meets and is enraptured by Rehana, Hassanali''s sister--by her gorgeous eyes and tragic aura. And so begins the passionate, illicit love affair--two lives and cultures colliding--that informs the rich, finely woven tapestry of Desertion. Gurnah, who has been short-listed for the Booker Prize, deftly and dramatically evokes the personal and political scandals of empire, the weight of tradition--of religion and culture--in everyday lives, the role of women in Muslim society, the vicissitudes of love, the complexities of filial relationships, the inexorability of miscegenation, and the power of fiction to charm and to harm. Desertion is a highly achieved, riveting work of imagination, brimming with controlled figural inventiveness, psychological acuity, and moral complexity. From the Hardcover edition.

BY THE WINNER OF THE 2021 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2021 ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 WALTER SCOTT PRIZE ''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... _______________ ''One of the world''s most prominent postcolonial writers ... He has consistently and with great compassion penetrated the effects of colonialism in East Africa and its effects on the lives of uprooted and migrating individuals'' Anders Olsson, chairman of the Nobel Committee ''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, if not fully whole'' Maaza Mengiste ''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

By the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature ''There is a wonderful sardonic eloquence to this unnamed narrator''s voice'' Financial Times ''I don''t think I''ve ever read a novel that is so convincingly and hauntingly sad about the loss of home'' Independent on Sunday _____________________ He thinks, as he escapes from Zanzibar, that he will probably never return, and yet the dream of studying in England matters above that. Things do not happen quite as he imagined – the school where he teaches is cramped and violent, he forgets how it feels to belong. But there is Emma, beautiful, rebellious Emma, who turns away from her white, middle-class roots to offer him love and bear him a child. And in return he spins stories of his home and keeps her a secret from his family. Twenty years later, when the barriers at last come down in Zanzibar, he is able and compelled to go back. What he discovers there, in a story potent with truth, will change the entire vision of his life.

By the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature ''The elegance and control of Gurnah''s writing, and his understanding of how quietly and slowly and repeatedly a heart can break, make this a deeply rewarding novel'' Kamila Shamsie, Guardian ________________________ For seven-year-old Salim, the pillars upholding his small universe – his indifferent father, his adored uncle, his treasured books, the daily routines of government school and Koran lessons – seem unshakeable. But it is the 1970s, and the winds of change are blowing through Zanzibar: suddenly Salim''s father is gone, and the island convulses with violence and corruption the wake of a revolution. It will only be years later, making his way through an alien and hostile London, that Salim will begin to understand the shame and exploitation festering at the heart of his family''s history. ________________________ ''Riveting ... The measured elegance of Gurnah''s prose renders his protagonist in a manner almost uncannily real'' New York Times ''Glittering ... Each work is different from the last, yet they build into a powerfully evocative oeuvre that keeps coming back to the same questions, in spare, graceful prose, about the ties that bind and the ties that fray'' Telegraph ''A colourful tale of life in a Zanzibar village, where passions and politics reshape a family... Powerful'' Mail on Sunday

By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021 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.

Vehement, comic and shrewd, Abdulrazak Gurnah’s first novel is an unwavering contemplation of East African coastal life

''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 CommitteeDelivered 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

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.

With nationalism and the far right on the rise across Europe and North America, there has never been a more important moment to face up to what we, in Britain, are doing to those who seek sanctuary. Still the UK detains people indefinitely under immigration rules. Bail hearings go unrecorded, people are picked up without notice, individuals feel abandoned in detention centres with no way of knowing when they will be released. In Refugee Tales III we read the stories of people who have been through this process, many of whom have yet to see their cases resolved and who live in fear that at any moment they might be detained again. Poets, novelists and writers have once again collaborated with people who have experienced detention, their tales appearing alongside first-hand accounts by people who themselves have been detained. What we hear in these stories are the realities of the hostile environment, the human costs of a system that disregards rights, that denies freedoms and suspends lives. ‘We hear so many of the wrong words about refugees – ugly, limiting, unimaginative words – that it feels like a gift to find here so many of the right words which allow us to better understand the lives around us, and our own lives too.’ – Kamila Shamsie All profits go to the Gatwick Detainee Welfare Group and Kent Help for Refugees.

Wielowarstwowa, nieoczywista i piękna opowieść o Afryce, jakiej nie znamy, autorstwa laureata Nagrody Nobla w dziedzinie literatury. Yusuf ma dwanaście lat i granice jego świata wyznaczają dom rodzinny oraz hotel, który prowadzi jego ojciec. Do czasu, kiedy z kolejną wizytą przybywa wuj Aziz – wędrowny kupiec i właściciel sklepu. Chłopiec wraz z wujem wyrusza w podróż, która, choć z przerwami, będzie trwała przez wiele lat. Yusuf jeszcze o tym nie wie. Nie ma też pojęcia, że został sprzedany za długi i jego beztroskie dzieciństwo właśnie się skończyło. Ta podróż to nie tylko droga przez nieznany ląd, ale też wyprawa w głąb siebie, która staje się uniwersalną opowieścią o dojrzewaniu i poszukiwaniu tożsamości. W prozie Abdulrazaka Gurnaha jest coś niezwykle naturalnego i szlachetnego, coś, co sięga fundamentalnych ambicji literatury, aby opowiedzieć ludzkie życie w możliwie najuczciwszy sposób oraz podzielić się tą opowieścią z innymi. Jego książki budują wspólnotę opartą na głębokim współczuciu i współuczestnictwie w tym, co nazywamy ludzkim losem, bez względu na miejsce zamieszkania, kulturę czy język. Olga Tokarczuk Raj staje w jednej linii ze Zniewolonym umysłem Miłosza czy Czarodziejską Górą Manna, ostrzegając przed złem tkwiącym w człowieku. Fascynująca opowieść. Wojciech Szot

In his first new novel since winning the 2021 Nobel Prize, a master storyteller captures a time of dizzying global change. At the turn of the twenty-first century, three young people come of age in Tanzania. Karim returns to his sleepy hometown after university with new swagger and ambition. Fauzia glimpses in him a chance at escape from a smothering upbringing. The two of them offer a haven to Badar, a poor boy still unsure if the future holds anything for him at all. As tourism, technology, and unexpected opportunities and perils reach their quiet corner of the world, bringing, each arrives at a different understanding of what it means to take your fate into your own hands.