Abdulrazak Gurnah

*By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021* **A "corrosively funny and relentless" (** The New York Times **) tale of cultural identity and displacement,** Admiring Silence **is the story of a man's dual lives as a refugee from his native Zanzibar in England.** The unnamed narrator of this dazzling novel escapes from Zanzibar to England knowing that he will probably never return. In his new country, things are not quite as he imagined – the school where he teaches is cramped and violent, and he quickly forgets how it feels to belong. But when he meets a beautiful, rebellious woman named Emma, and when Emma, turns away from her white, middle-class roots to offer him love and bear him a child, the narrator chooses to hide his past from his new family and his present circumstance from his family back in Zanzibar. Twenty years later, when the barriers at last come down in Zanzibar, he is compelled to go back. What he discovers there, in a story potent with truth, will change the entire vision of his life. ### Review “Corrosively funny and relentless... Gurnah skillfully depicts the agony of a man caught between two cultures, each of which would disown him for his links to the other.” ― *The New York Times* “Through a twisting, many-layered narrative, *Admiring Silence* explores themes of race and betrayal with bitterly satirical insight” ― *Sunday Times* “I don't think I've ever read a novel that is so convincingly and hauntingly sad about the loss of home, the impossible longing to belong.” ―Michèle Roberts, *Independent on Sunday* ### About the Author **Abdulrazak Gurnah** is the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021. He is the author of ten novels: *Memory of Departure* , *Pilgrims Way* , *Dottie* , *Paradise* (shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Award), *Admiring Silence* , *By the Sea* (longlisted for the Booker Prize and shortlisted for the *Los Angeles Times* Book Award), *Desertion* (shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize) *The Last Gift* , *Gravel Heart* , and *Afterlives* , which was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Fiction 2021 and longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize. He was Professor of English at the University of Kent, and was a Man Booker Prize judge in 2016. He lives in Canterbury.

<b>'One of Africa's greatest living writers' Giles Foden</b><br/>Restless, ambitious Ilyas was stolen from his parents by the <i>Schutzruppe askari</i>, the German colonial troops; after years away, he returns to his village to find his parents gone, and his sister Afiya given away. <br/> <br/>Hamza was not stolen, but was sold; he has come of age in the <i>schutztruppe</i>, at the right hand of an officer whose control has ensured his protection but marked him for life. <br/> <br/>The century is young. The Germans and the British and the French and the Belgians and whoever else have drawn their maps and signed their treaties and divided up Africa. As they seek complete dominion they are forced to extinguish revolt after revolt by the colonised. The conflict in Europe opens another arena in east Africa where a brutal war devastates the landscape. Hamza does not have words for how the war ended for him. Returning to the town of his childhood, all he wants is work, however humble,... <div> <p>BY THE WINNER OF THE 2021 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURESHORTLISTED FOR THE 2021 ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTIONLONGLISTED 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. </p> <p>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</p></div>

By the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature'A careful and heartfelt exploration of the way memory inevitably consoles and disappoints us' Sunday Times 'Beautifully written and pleasurable ... The work of a maestro' Guardian'An absorbing novel about abandonment and loss' Daily Telegraph___________________________________Early one morning in 1899, in a small town along the coast from Mombasa, Hassanali sets out for the mosque. But he never gets there, for out of the desert stumbles an ashen and exhausted Englishman who collapses at his feet. That man is Martin Pearce - writer, traveller and something of an Orientalist. After Pearce has recuperated, he visits Hassanali to thank him for his rescue and meets Hassanali's sister Rehana; he is immediately captivated. In this crumbling town on the edge of civilised life, with the empire on the brink of a new century, a passionate love affair begins that brings two cultures together and which will reverberate through three generations and across continents.

By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021A searing tale of a young woman discovering her troubled family history and cultural past'Gurnah writes with wonderful insight about family relationships and he folds in the layers of history with elegance and warmth' The Times_________________________________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.

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

The debut novel by the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in LiteratureVehement, comic and shrewd, Abdulrazak Gurnah's first novel is an unwavering contemplation of East African coastal lifePoverty and depravity wreak havoc on Hassan Omar's family. Amid great hardship he decides to escape. The arrival of independence brings new upheavals as well as the betrayal of the promise of freedom. The new government, fearful of an exodus of its most able men, discourages young people from travelling abroad and refuses to release examination results. Deprived of a scholarship, Hassan travels to Nairobi to stay with a wealthy uncle, in the hope that he will release his mother's rightful share of the family inheritance. The collision of past secrets and future hopes, the compound of fear and frustration, beauty and brutality, create a fierce tale of undeniable power.____________________'Gurnah is a master storyteller' FINANCIAL TIMES'Exile has given Gurnah a perspective on the “balance between things” that is astonishing, superb' OBSERVER'A captivating storyteller' GUARDIAN'Gurnah etches with biting incisiveness the experiences of immigrants exposed to contempt, hostility or patronising indifference on their arrival in Britain' SPECTATOR

By the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature 'Demands to be read and reread, for its humour, generosity of spirit and clear-sighted vision' Evening Standard'Gurnah zooms in on individual acts of violence ... and unexpected acts of kindness' Daily Telegraph________________________Demoralised by small persecutions and the squalor and poverty of his life, Daud takes refuge in his imagination. He composes wry, sardonic letters hectoring friends and enemies, and invents a lurid colonial past for every old man he encounters. His greatest solace is cricket and the symbolic defeat of the empire at the hands of the mighty West Indies. Although subject to attacks of bitterness and remorse, his captivating sense of humour never deserts him as he struggles to come to terms with the horror of his past and the meaning of his pilgrimage to England.

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 drugstore in Exeter, before they settled into a quiet life with their children, Jamal and Hanna. Now, at the age of sixty-three, he suffers a collapse that renders him 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 has never thought to find herself-until now.