By the Sea
By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021
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3.8 • 5 Ratings
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- £7.99
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- £7.99
Publisher Description
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.
Customer Reviews
Not for once
Abdul Razak Gurnah writes beautifully.
Beside the Sea is a tragic romance of interwoven stories of love, betrayal, mendacity, illusion and disillusion. British colonialism leaves a heavy footprint, crushing a network of interleaved cultures as a man might crush a moth.
But, despite all the above, the story did not pull me along. I became lost in its intricacies, depressed by the consistent tone of sadness and defeat.