Theft

Theft is Abdulrazak Gurnah’s 11th novel, and his first since winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021. Set between Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam on the cusp of the 21st century, memories of revolution and colonial rule cast long shadows over a rapidly changing nation. It is here that we are introduced to two precocious students, Fauzia and Karim, and Badar, a boy whose life is hemmed in by the choices of his absent father.

This is a quiet novel of unquiet lives, following the slow-winding fates of three youths as their paths converge and come apart again. A quite literal theft, which at first glance appears central to the plot, is quickly subsumed by the realisation that this is a novel of immeasurable thefts – between people and their governments, each other and themselves. Rather than a tale of interpersonal drama, Gurnah offers us a very real tapestry of the choices made by people and for them; the ways in which life’s potential becomes whittled down, or, preciously, branches out.

A subtle writer through and through, Gurnah does not rush to explain to you his purpose. As the layers of circumstance and meaning culminate, the wider picture slowly becomes clear, and is all the more impactful for how carefully he brings the reader to see it for themselves.