By the Sea

By: Abdulrazak Gurnah

Narrated by: Connie Mgadzah, Denver Isaac

Bloomsbury presents By the Sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah, read by Connie MGadzah and Denver Isaac.

By the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature
LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE

'One scarcely dares breathe while reading it for fear of breaking the enchantment' The Times

‘Gurnah is a master storyteller' Financial Times

On a late November afternoon Saleh Omar arrives at Gatwick Airport from Zanzibar, a far away island in the Indian Ocean. With him he has a small bag in which lies his most precious possession – a mahogany box containing incense. He used to own a furniture shop, have a house and be a husband and father. Now he is an asylum seeker from paradise; silence his only protection.

Meanwhile Latif Mahmud, someone intimately connected with Saleh's past, lives quietly alone in his London flat. When Saleh and Latif meet in an English seaside town, a story is unravelled. It is a story of love and betrayal, seduction and possession, and of a people desperately trying to find stability amidst the maelstrom of their times.

©2001 Abdulrazak Gurnah (P)2022 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Critic reviews

"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)

"Gurnah is a master storyteller." (Financial Times)