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As a disparate group of individuals are caught up in the conflagration of the First World War, Afterlives probes both the personal and political cost of rebellion.
Winner of the Nobel Prize For Literature 2021
Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction 2021
Restless, ambitious Ilyas was stolen from his parents by the Schutzruppe askari, the German colonial troops; after years away, he returns to his village to find his parents gone, and his sister Afiya given away.
Hamza was not stolen, but was sold; he has come of age in the army, at the right hand of an officer whose control has ensured his protection but marked him for life. Hamza does not have words for how the war ended for him. Returning to the town of his childhood, all he wants is work, however humble, and security - and the beautiful Afiya.
The century is young. The Germans and the British and the French and the Belgians and whoever else have drawn their maps and signed their treaties and divided up Africa. As they seek complete dominion they are forced to extinguish revolt after revolt by the colonised. The conflict in Europe opens another arena in east Africa where a brutal war devastates the landscape.
As these interlinked friends and survivors come and go, live and work and fall in love, the shadow of a new war lengthens and darkens, ready to snatch them up and carry them away.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 9781526615893
Number of pages: 288
Weight: 204 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'A remarkable novel, by a wondrous writer, deeply compelling, a thread that links our humanity with the colonial legacy that lies beneath, in ways that cut deep' - Philippe Sands
'Effortlessly compelling storytelling ... Gurnah excels at depicting the lives of those made small by cruelty and injustice ... A beautiful, cruel world of bittersweet encounters and pockets of compassion, twists of fate and fluctuating fortunes ... You forget that you are reading fiction, it feels so real' - Leila Aboulela
'Gurnah is a master storyteller' - Aminatta Forna, Financial Times
'As beautifully written and pleasurable as anything I've read ... The work of a maestro' - Guardian
'An aural archive of a lost Africa ... alive with the unexpected. In it, an obliterated world is enthrallingly retrieved' - Sunday Times
'Rarely in a lifetime can you open a book and find that reading it encapsulates the enchanting qualities of a love affair ... one scarcely dares breathe while reading it for fear of breaking the enchantment' - The Times
'Many layered, violent, beautiful and strange ... a poetic and vividly conjured book about Africa and the brooding power of the unknown' - Independent on Sunday
'A powerfully evocative oeuvre that keeps coming back to the same questions, in spare, graceful prose, about the ties that bind and the ties that fray' - Daily Telegraph
'One of Africa's greatest living writers' - Giles Foden
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“An incredible feat of storytelling”
Afterlives is both captivating and heartbreaking in equal measure. The novel sheds light on the largely undiscussed imperial presence of Germany in East Africa, detailing the immediate and generational effects of... More
“The author’s usual skills.”
Having enjoyed his previous books I was delighted to see the award of the well deserved Nobel Prize. He writes in such a compelling way about history of Tanganyika and Zanzibar (now Tanzania). To anyone who has... More
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