Mombasa and Zanzibar

The bitterness of the immigrant experience, the tumultuous coming of independence to a former British colony, forbidden love and miscegenation within a close-knit Muslim community: dominant themes of Abdul-razak Gurnah’s former novels are gathered together in this one. Since, though not abnormally long, his book ranges over such a wealth of material, there are inevitably occasions when its usually grave, deliberate pace quickens to a scurry, making one wish to shout out at him, ‘Whoa! Not so fast! Not so fast!’

At the start of the narrative, a devout Muslim shopkeeper, Hassanali, in an obscure town along the coast from Mombasa, sets off early one morning in 1899 for the nearby mosque. Before he can get there, a dishevelled Englishman staggers towards him and collapses. Abandoning his errand, Hassanali enlists passers-by to carry the man back to his store. The Englishman, an Orientalist who has escaped from Arab companions plotting to kill him during their travels together in the desert, ends up convalescing in the house of the district officer.