An African boy comes of age in an East Africa increasingly corrupted by colonialism and violence, in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s powerful historical fiction
By the Sea
Written by Abdulrazak Gurnah
- Longlisted
- The Booker Prize 2001
- Published by Bloomsbury
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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.
Abdulrazak Gurnah
Abdulrazak Gurnah is the author of nine novels. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in October 2021
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