The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: Memory of Departure: By the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021, Abdulrazak Gurnah

Memory of Departure: By the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021

Abdulrazak Gurnah

**By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021**

Vehement, comic and shrewd, Abdulrazak Gurnah's first novel is a "compelling" (New York Times) and unwavering contemplation of East African coastal life.

Hassan Omar is a gifted young man, with a potentially bright future but a past marred by poverty. In the wake of a national uprising, and with a new government in place, though, he is denied a scholarship to a university abroad and deprived of the opportunity to study further. Instead, Hassan travels to Nairobi to stay with a wealthy uncle, in the hope that he will release his mother's rightful share of the family inheritance.

In Nairobi, Hassan experiences the collision of past secrets and future hopes, and the compounding of fear and frustration, beauty and brutality. In his debut novel, Nobel Prize winning author Abdurlazak Gurnah creates a fierce tale of undeniable power.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
  • Publish Date: Mar 8th, 2022
  • Pages: 208
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 7.60in - 5.00in - 0.60in - 0.35lb
  • EAN: 9781526653482
  • Categories: LiteraryAfrican American & Black - GeneralHumorous - Dark Humor

More books to explore

Book Cover for: The Sellout, Paul Beatty
Book Cover for: Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Louis Stevenson
Book Cover for: Substitute Me, Lori L. Tharps
Book Cover for: Coffee Will Make You Black, April Sinclair
Book Cover for: I Left My Back Door Open, April Sinclair
Book Cover for: Private Admission, Antonio Robinson
Book Cover for: Standing Heavy, Gauz'
Book Cover for: Welcome to Braggsville, T. Geronimo Johnson
Book Cover for: American Foursquare, Nettie Zan
Book Cover for: Ghost Lights, Lydia Millet
Book Cover for: Trauma Town Dispatch, Suzann Kale
Book Cover for: Letters to Wendy's, Joe Wenderoth
Book Cover for: Beirut Hellfire Society, Rawi Hage
Book Cover for: The Dreamed Part, Rodrigo Fresán
Book Cover for: Narrator, Bragi Ólafsson

About the Author

Gurnah, Abdulrazak: - 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.

More books by Abdulrazak Gurnah

Book Cover for: Theft (Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature), Abdulrazak Gurnah
Book Cover for: Afterlives, Abdulrazak Gurnah
Book Cover for: Paradise: By the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021, Abdulrazak Gurnah
Book Cover for: By the Sea, Abdulrazak Gurnah
Book Cover for: Desertion, Abdulrazak Gurnah
Book Cover for: Gravel Heart: By the Winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature, Abdulrazak Gurnah
Book Cover for: The Last Gift: By the Winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature, Abdulrazak Gurnah
Book Cover for: Admiring Silence: By the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021, Abdulrazak Gurnah
Book Cover for: El Desertor. Premio Nobel de Literatura 2021 / Desertion, Abdulrazak Gurnah
Book Cover for: Pilgrims Way: By the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021, Abdulrazak Gurnah
Book Cover for: Dhulma, Abdulrazak Gurnah
Book Cover for: Dottie: By the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021, Abdulrazak Gurnah
Book Cover for: A Orillas del Mar / Bythe Sea, Abdulrazak Gurnah
Book Cover for: Paraíso / Paradise, Abdulrazak Gurnah
Book Cover for: La Vida, Después / Afterlives, Abdulrazak Gurnah

Praise for this book

"A compelling study of one man's struggle to find a purpose for his life and a haunting portrait of a traditional society collapsing under the weight of poverty and rapid change." --The New York Times

"[Gurnah's] sentences are deceptively soft, but the cumulative force for me felt like a sledgehammer. He has written work that is absolutely unflinching and yet at the same time completely compassionate and full of heart for people of East Africa. He is writing stories that are often quiet stories of people who aren't heard, but there's an insistence there that we listen." --Maaza Mengiste, author of THE SHADOW KING, shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize

"[A] captivating storyteller, with a voice both lyrical and mordant, and an oeuvre haunted by memory and loss. His intricate novels of arrival and departure ... reveal, with flashes of acerbic humour, the lingering ties that bind continents, and how competing versions of history collide." --Guardian

"Gurnah writes with wonderful insight about family relationships and he folds in the layers of history with elegance and warmth." --The Times