Entre zanzibar et le lac victoria, c'est l'afrique des "grands" explorateurs blancs, les burton, livingston, stanley, qui, après les successives conquêtes portugaises puis arabes, ont défait ce pays, alors tanganyika, en deux entités, une pour l'angleterre, une pour l'allemagne.

Dans cette histoire de dominations, l'existence du jeune yusuf est d'une extrême légèreté que chaque vent déplace, chasse, emporte. vendu par son père en règlement d'une dette, il est mis au service d'un riche propriétaire, oncle aziz. là, en compagnie d'un autre jeune esclave, il commencera l'apprentissage de sa nouvelle vie. il fera le voyage des caravanes qui traversent le continent pour commercer, au risque d'y perdre la vie.
De retour, il sera le jouet des lubies sensuelles de sa maîtresse, cloîtrée dans un jardin qui ressemblait à l'eden.
Par l'un des grands écrivains de l'afrique anglophone, le roman troublé d'une jeunesse africaine au début de ce siècle.
Lire la suite Fermer

Kenya, 1899. Il est apparu à l'aube comme une figure de légende avant de s'effondrer aux pieds d'Hassanali, le marchand, sur le chemin de la mosquée. Martin Pearce, écrivain britannique, a été battu, volé et abandonné par ses guides dans le désert. Recueilli par Hassanali, il tombe amoureux fou de Rehana, la soeur de son hôte. Une relation interdite et scandaleuse s'initie, dont les conséquences se répercuteront sur les générations suivantes.Zanzibar, années 1950. Amin, Rashid et leur soeur Farida sont chacun en proie aux difficultés du secret. Farida vit un amour caché que ses parents désapprouveraient. Amin, lui, s'éprend d'une femme plus âgée, Jamila, la propre petite-fille de Rehana et de Pearce, enfant de la honte et objet de mille rumeurs scabreuses. Quant à Rashid, le narrateur, il part étudier à Londres dans un univers glacial et raciste, alors que Zanzibar, au lendemain de l'indépendance, bascule dans la violence et le chaos.
Londres, années 1960. Les parents de Rashid sont morts et les secrets ont été déliés. Dans un contexte social et racial apaisé, Rashid, devenu enseignant, rencontre par hasard la blanche Barbara, une lointaine cousine de Jamila. Ils s'aiment librement et décident de partir à la recherche de leurs racines communes et de Jamila à Zanzibar.
Formant un patchwork de cultures et de points de vue extraordinairement divers mais harmonieux en dépit des conflits sous-jacents, Abdulrazak Gurnah est aussi à l'aise chez les uns que chez les autres - Noirs, Blancs, Indiens, Arabes -, de la case africaine la plus simple à la mosquée aux portes bleues, du marchand indien négociant ses épices dans la lumière dorée du soleil brûlant à l'ombre à peine fraîche de la véranda de l'administrateur anglais sirotant son gin tout en philosophant sur les bienfaits de l'Empire de Sa Majesté britannique.De la fable poétique au témoignage désenchanté, Abdulrazak Gurnah raconte aussi les illusions dissipées avec un humour féroce et un réalisme désabusé. Mais Gurnah n'est ni cynique ni entièrement pessimiste, et les unions symboliques entre Noirs et Blancs tissent autant d'histoires dans une tapisserie délicate d'ombre et de lumière.


Lire la suite Fermer

Born in East Africa, Yusuf has few qualms about the journey he is to make. It never occurs to him to ask why he is accompanying Uncle Aziz or why the trip has been organised so suddenly, and he does not think to ask when he will be returning. But the truth is that his ''uncle'' is a rich and powerful merchant and Yusuf has been pawned to him to pay his father''s debts. Paradise is a rich tapestry of myth, dreams and Biblical and Koranic tradition, the story of a young boy''s coming of age against the backdrop of an Africa increasingly corrupted by colonialism and violence.

LONGLISTED 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
Lire la suite Fermer

Moving from revolutionary Zanzibar in the 1960s to restless London in the 1990s, Gravel Heart is a powerful story of exile, migration and betrayal, from the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of Paradise Salim has always believed that his father does not want him. Living with his parents and his adored Uncle Amir in a house full of secrets, he is a bookish child, a dreamer haunted by night terrors.

It is the 1970s and Zanzibar is changing. Tourists arrive, the island's white sands obscuring the memory of recent conflict: longed-for independence from British colonialism swiftly followed by bloody revolution. When his father moves out, retreating into dishevelled introspection, Salim is confused and ashamed. His mother explains neither this nor her absences with a strange man; silence is layered on silence.

When glamorous Uncle Amir, now a senior diplomat, offers Salim an escape, the lonely teenager travels to London for college. But nothing has prepared him for the biting cold and seething crowds of this hostile city. Struggling to find a foothold, and to understand the darkness at the heart of his family, Salim must face devastating truths about himself and those closest to him - and about love, sex and power.

Evoking the immigrant experience with unsentimental precision and profound insight, Gravel Heart is a powerfully affecting story of isolation, identity, belonging and betrayal, and is Abulrazak Gurnah's most dazzling achievement.
Lire la suite Fermer

''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> Lire la suite Fermer

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

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.> Lire la suite Fermer