Consecrated by the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021, Abdulrazak Gurnah was born in 1948 in Zanzibar, Tanzania. He taught for a long time at the University of Kent in Great Britain and he is the author of ten novels, including “Près de la mer” which received the RFI “Témoin du monde” prize in 2007. Three of his novels have been translated into French and are republished by Denoël.
Translated from English by Sylvette Gleize.
“One morning in 1899, in a small coastal town in East Africa, Hassanali sets out for the mosque of which he is the muezzin.
His walk is interrupted and his destiny falters when he crosses paths with an exhausted Englishman who collapses at his feet. This man writer, traveler and orientalist, soon becomes friends with the muezzin and tells him about his hectic existence.
Quickly, and despite everything that separates them, the foreign traveler will fall madly in love with Hassanali’s sister. From this forbidden passion will be born a daughter, then a granddaughter who will in turn suffer banishment.
From colonial Africa to London of the sixties, Abdulrazak Gurnah makes the voice of the banished and the reprobate heard. (Presentation of Denoel editions)
Translated from English by Sylvette Gleize
“One evening in November 1994, sixty-five-year-old Saleh Omar arrives at London airport with a forged passport in his pocket in the name of Mahmud. In his former life, on the island of Zanzibar, Saleh owned a shop, was married and father of a family. Today, clutching a small bag in which is his most precious possession, a mahogany box containing incense, he asks for asylum in a country which does not want him.
When the son of the real Mahmud learns that Saleh is in England, the past suddenly resurfaces. Confronted with the clichés that the English place on them, the two men tell their real stories, close to another sea. (Presentation of Denoel editions)
Translated from English by Anne-Cécile Padoux
“When his parents announce to Yusuf, twelve years old, that he is going to stay for a while with his uncle Aziz, he is delighted. Taking the train, discovering a big city, what happiness for him who has never left his village of Tanzania: He doesn’t immediately understand that his father sold him to pay off a debt that was too heavy – and that Aziz is not his uncle, but a wealthy merchant who needs one more slave in his home. .
Through Yusuf’s eyes, East Africa at the beginning of the 20th century, undermined by colonization, is revealed in all its beauty and harshness. In these desert expanses crossed by slow caravans, in this soon-to-be-lost paradise, the weight of a life is worth that of a few drops of water.” (Presentation of Denoel editions)