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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
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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.
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.
Summary
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.
Foreword
An extraordinary depiction of the life of an immigrant, as he struggles to come to terms with the horror of his past and the meaning of his pilgrimage to England
Additional text
Gurnah writes with wonderful insight about family relationships and he folds in the layers of history with elegance and warmth
Report
Exile has given Gurnah a perspective on the "balance between things" that is astonishing, superb Observer
