Abdulrazak Gurnah’s story of love and betrayal, of seduction and possession, and of people desperately trying to find stability amidst the maelstrom.

Saleh Omar arrives at Gatwick Airport from Zanzibar, a faraway 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 lives quietly alone in his London flat. When Saleh and Latif meet in an English seaside town, a story is unravelled.

Longlisted
The Booker Prize 2001
Published by
Bloomsbury
Publication date

Buy the book

We benefit financially from any purchases you make when using the ‘Buy the book’ links.

Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abdulrazak Gurnah

About the Author

Abdulrazak Gurnah is the author of nine novels. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in October 2021. He is Emeritus Professor of English and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Kent, and was a Booker Prize judge in 2016.
More about Abdulrazak Gurnah

Other nominated books by Abdulrazak Gurnah

Paradise