Filtrer
Bloomsbury
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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
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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.
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Nouv.
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.>
