Afterlives
| Author | Abdulrazak Gurnah |
|---|---|
| Genre | Historical fiction |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury |
Publication date | 17 September 2020 |
| Pages | 288 |
| ISBN | 978-1-5266-1585-5 |
| Preceded by | Gravel Heart |
Afterlives is a 2020 historical fiction novel by Abdulrazak Gurnah. It was first published by Bloomsbury Publishing on 17 September 2020.[1] Set in the context of the Maji Maji uprising, the plot follows four protagonists living in German-occupied East Africa and is set in the early years of the 20th century.[2][3] In April 2021, the novel was longlisted for the Orwell Prize of Political Fiction.[4]
Critical reception[edit]
The novel received generally positive reviews. David Pilling of the Financial Times described it as a "book of quiet beauty and tragedy".[2] In a review for The Guardian, Maaza Mengiste praised its narrative details of colonialism and depiction of psychologically complicated relationships, though she felt that the ending was rushed. Referring to the "deliberate exclusion of an African perspective" from historical archives, she concludes: "In Afterlives, he considers the generational effects of colonialism and war, and asks us to consider what remains in the aftermath of so much devastation."[5]
References[edit]
- ^ "Afterlives". Bloomsbury Publishing. Retrieved 7 October 2021.
- ^ a b Pilling, David (22 October 2020). "Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah — forgotten Africa". Financial Times. Retrieved 7 October 2021.
- ^ Carington, Francesca (7 October 2021). "Afterlives by Adbulrazak Gurnah, review: love and loss in German East Africa". The Telegraph. Retrieved 7 October 2021.
- ^ Comerford, Ruth (9 April 2021). "Granta and Dialogue claim multiple titles on Orwell Prize longlists". The Bookseller. Retrieved 7 October 2021.
- ^ Mengiste, Maaza (30 September 2020). "Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah review – living through colonialism". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 October 2021.
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Afterlives: By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021 Hardcover – 5 January 2021
by Abdulrazak Gurnah (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars 29 ratings
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A tender account of the extraordinariness of ordinary lives, Afterlives combines entrancing storytelling with writing whose exquisite emotional precision confirms Gurnah's place among the outstanding stylists of modern English prose. Like its predecessors, this is a novel that demands to be read and reread, for its humour, generosity of spirit and clear-sighted vision of the infinite contradictions of human nature ― Evening Standard
From the first assured pages of Afterlives, a book of quiet beauty and tragedy, it is clear one is in the hands of a master storyteller ― Financial Times
A deeply compelling novel that opens in the early years of the 20th century, during Germany's brutal colonial rule in East Africa. Oscillating between the personal and political, Gurnah opens the imagination, the connections between that moment, what followed in Europe, and our own struggles to grapple with the legacies of colony and race. The final pages are as devastating as any I have read. A brilliant and important book for our times, by a wondrous writer -- Philippe Sands ― New Statesman, Books of the Year
Riveting and heartbreaking ... A compelling novel, one that gathers close all those who were meant to be forgotten, and refuses their erasure. -- Maaza Mengiste ― Guardian
In clean, measured prose, Gurnah zooms in on individual acts of violence ... and unexpected acts of kindness. Affecting in its ordinariness, Afterlives is a compelling exploration of the urge to find places of sanctuary ― Daily Telegraph
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
To read Afterlives is to be returned to the joy of storytelling as Abdulrazak Gurnah takes us to the place where imagined lives collide with history. In prose as clear and as rhythmic as the waters of the Indian Ocean, the story of Hamza and Afiya is one of simple lives buffeted by colonial ambitions, of the courage it takes to endure, to hold oneself with dignity, and to live with hope in the heart -- Aminatta Forna
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
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
A vibrant and vivid novel which shows human beings in all their generosity and greed, pettiness and nobility, so that even minor characters seem capable of carrying entire novels all by themselves ― Herald
Abdulrazak Gurnah is a master of his craft ... An intricate, delicate novel, vitally necessary ― New Internationalist
Brings together the themes of choice, love dislocation, memory and history. The powerful stories that Gurnah tells in his novels provoke us to examine our own choices and where they have led us today ― London Magazine
Book Description
From 'one of Africa's greatest living writers' (Giles Foden), a shatteringly powerful novel about a forgotten piece of Africa colonial history
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Product details
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing (5 January 2021)
Language : English
Hardcover : 288 pages
4.0 out of 5 stars
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars A devastating story of German colonial power
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 April 2021
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This is a fine novel in many ways and builds to an utterly devastating conclusion. The historical detail felt a little laboured at times, but I knew nothing about Germany as a colonial power and have a better understanding of that now.
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Osmium12
4.0 out of 5 stars The extraordinary journey of Dr Livingstone’s corpse across Africa
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 January 2021
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Moving fictionalised story of carrying David Livingstones body to the coast of Africa so it could be buried in London. Brings out the tensions of tribal and religious differences, the arrogance of the colonialists and the mix of fascinating characters from many a background.
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Sergey Donskih
3.0 out of 5 stars Colourful, subtle tale of human condition - alas, with major flaws
Reviewed in the United States on 10 November 2020
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I will say right away that the book is a good read: its setting is exotic in both place and time, the part of history not so well known to wider audience, and author's style is solid and easy. The author has a steady hand with detail and local character, and the general tone of the book is that of detached sadness with a glimmer of hope, something which is, in my opinion, often obscured in contemporary literature by graphic depictions of horrors and rabid cynicism. There are however major flaws - the character of elder Ilyas, so fundamental to the novel, remains sketchy, undeveloped, the plot twist in which he dashes out to the war so alien for him right after having found his lost sister, basically abandoning her, is completely unconvincing, and is never explained to a satisfactory degree. Everything related to Ilyas reads like Hemingway's iceberg method gone terribly wrong - just the tip on top, without the real iceberg beneath. I am sorry to say, bot this taints the whole text, as the plot is pretty much driven by Ilyas' absence. To add to that, the author handles change of pacing in the plot without skill. Both these issues are really strange to see in a supposedly seasoned writer like Gurnah... Makes me wonder how this got past the publisher and the editor... but maybe it's precisely the author's stance which explains it.
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Paulo A. Reimann
5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous
Reviewed in the United States on 12 July 2021
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This is my first Abdulrazak Gurna's book. Loved it. Easy reading. Pleasant. Great story behind actual historical facts. Will read his other books.
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==May 17, 2020Ilse rated it liked it
Shelves: reviewed, 2020
Update 7th October 2021 - Nobel Prize for Abdulrazak Gurnah "for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between culture and continents"
Lately a friend reviewed Abdulrazak Gurnah’s novel By the Sea, which reminded me of his novel Paradise(1994) that I did read some decades ago. So when the news reached me a new novel of him was about to be published, I was keen to read it as my present reading habits seem to have turned rather Eurocentric over the years.
Glimpsing through summaries of that Man Booker shortlisted novel Paradise, quite some parallels and recurring components in Gurnah’s storystelling struck me , from the social patterns defining the tough childhood of some of the characters (a childhood spent in debt bondage or suffering from domestic abuse), the dreamy nature of one of the protagonists, the merchant milieu, the setting of the narratives at the confluence of cultures and religions in East Africa, to the detached storytelling, the dash of homo-erotic suggestiveness and the astonishing kindness and generosity some of his characters bestow upon each other in a light-hearted way.
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Like Gurnah’s novel Paradise, Afterlives is a historical novel which goes back to the times of the German and later British colonisation of East-Africa, in particularly what is today known Tanzania, mostly spanning the years shortly before and during the first world war, with a more concise rendition of the fate and experiences of the characters during the second world war and the aftermath of it.
Slowly paced, the novel introduces the reader gradually to the few principal characters in the story, through which storylines and history will meet: the merchant clerk Khalifa who is of Ghujarati descent, Ilyas, Hamza and Afiya.
A large chunk of the novel conveys the every day life and military campaigns of the Askari, the local soldiers serving in the German Colonial Army (Schutztruppe) recruited for enforcing the colonial regime and who fought in Africa during the first World War. Askari were employed by the Italian, British, Portuguese, German and Belgian colonial armies.
As the askari told their swaggering stories and marched across the rain-shadow plains of the great mountain, they did not know that they were to spend years fighting across swamps and mountains and forests and grasslands, in heavy rain and drought, slaughtering and being slaughtered by armies of people they knew nothing about: Punjabis and Sikhs, Fantis and Akans and Hausas and Yorubas, Kongo and Luba, all mercenaries who fought the Europeans’ wars for them, the Germans with their schutztruppe, the British with their King’s African Rifles and the Royal West African Frontier Force and their Indian troops, the Belgians with their Force Publique.
Both Ilyas and Hamza will join the askari forces voluntarily, unaware they will be merely pliable pawns of the brutal times sweeping their region. Their life paths will get connected when both men, in different stages of the novel, wash ashore on the premise of Khalifa in a unnamed East-African port town. Khalifa will also take Ilyas’s once lost little sister Aliya under his wing.
The novel paints a devastating picture of terror, war and exploitation in the name of bringing civilisation – personified in the ambiguous conduct of the despondent German officer sent to the region to occupy the country, treating his African batman, Hamza half seriously, half mockingly, with a weird mixture of contempt and affection. The officer attempts to learn the local language while at the same time he insists on teaching Hamza German, to introduce Hamza to German literature, with the ultimate ambition to acquaint him with Schiller’s writing.
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Even though the colonisation and war are ravaging the region, by painting scenes of every day local life in the small merchant community, where Islamic faith goes together with traditional belief in necromancers and men and women find each other in birth and death, courtship and marriage Gurnah beautifully evokes how life goes on, working, loving, learning and worshipping. One of the themes is the sense of uprooting Hamza and Aliya experience, how they are cut off from the past, bereft of or abandoned by their parents and siblings, or having been abandoning them themselves, for different reasons. Their sensitivity in dealing with their past gives a melancholic tone to the prose.
While the distant, sober style made it hard to engage fully with the story, the matter-of-factness attributed significantly to the believability of Gurnah’s storytelling. When reading historical fiction I normally have to silence the voice in my head wondering if what I am reading is fact or imagination, which more often than not prevents me from truly enjoying the book and making me wish I had chosen to read a non-fiction account of the subject and period instead. Gurnah’s deft storytelling however managed to soothe that pesky voice. While not the whole cast of characters was entirely convincing – for instance the proto-feminism of the merchant and of Alifah won my sympathy but seemed improbable - the background narrative was immersive.
Reading historical fiction not that often, for what it is worth, Afterlives to me came across as a fine specimen in the genre, weaving the big history throughout the tale and touching on the impact of the life of individuals in a way the balance between historical details and fictional elements seems fine, covering and bringing to life an episode in Western and African history which might be less known.
Later these events would be turned into stories of absurd and nonchalant heroics, a side-show to the great tragedies in Europe, but for those who lived through it, this was a time when their land was soaked in blood and littered with corpses.
Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for granting me an ARC of this finely composed novel of love, resilience, freedom and survival.
(***1/2)
(paintings by Irma Stern) (less)
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Roman Clodia
Aug 16, 2020Roman Clodia rated it liked it
Every bit of it belonged to Europeans, at least on a map: British East Africa, Deutsche-Ostafrika, Africa Oriental Portuguesa, Congo Belge.
This is a hard book for me to rate since I found the material with which it's concerned fascinating - but the mode of storytelling is very distanced and 'told'. Rather than living through the experiences with the characters, we're often absorbing narrative information as if we were reading a history text rather than a novel: 'They burned villages and trampled fields and plundered food stores. African bodies were left hanging on roadside gibbets in a landscape that was scorched and terrorised.' This exposition-heavy style includes lots of indirect speech (instead of dialogue): 'Ilyas told Khalifa how he had run away from home as a child and wandered around for several days before he was kidnapped by a schutzgruppe askari at the train station and taken' - scenes that might have been powerful if we'd witnessed them or even heard them in the voice of the subject become almost incidental. I did wonder if this was deliberate technique to normalise the experiences of the characters or whether this is a reference to a different, non-western, storytelling tradition - I don't know the answers but it did make this a very slow read as I was intellectually engaged but not emotionally involved.
The story itself takes a look over a period of about 60 years of colonial involvement in East Africa, primarily the role of Germany. This is such a little-known history to me that I was fascinated to find out more, especially the role of African mercenaries in German 'protection troops'. Beginning in around the 1890s, there's a large section that explores how English-German hostilities during WW1 and after played out in Africa; and the book also flips forward to WW2 when the Nazis' policy of lebensraum extended back to Africa and their former colonies there.
All of this is fabulous material, but I struggled with the telling. The characters on whom the story is hung move in and out of focus: sometimes we're engaged in their lives, at others they seem just hooks upon which to hang the history. And then the book ends abruptly with a bald statement that feels inconclusive.
So I think this is one of those books where we need to manage our expectations going in - the content is unusual in terms of material and is absolutely fascinating, but the mode of telling might be less novelistic that I, at least, wanted.
Thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC via NetGalley (less)
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Katie Lumsden
Jun 10, 2021Katie Lumsden rated it liked it
This was an interesting one - I quite enjoyed some moments but the writing style wasn't really for me, and I found myself feeling at a distance from it. (less)
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safiyareads
Sep 27, 2020safiyareads rated it it was amazing
Gurnah wove an intricate tapestry in which several characters’ lives intersect, entwine and crossover at varying points. We are shown the threads of each character, their hitches and pains along the way and the more colourful, shining moments in which the beauty of the tapestry begins to show, despite the bleak circumstances they are dealt.
The story takes place in East Africa, present day Tanzania for the most part, and begins during the colonial rule of Germany. It follows through both world wars, independence and the years in the aftermath.
Afiya and Hamza are the two central characters and for around the first half of the book, their stories are completely separate. Through Hamza we are shown the impact of war on the soldiers who were either coerced, compelled, volunteered or otherwise, to fight for the Germans. Through Afiya we see some of the effects of the war on civilians through the conditions imposed by the colonisers battling with trade and economic issues.
When Hamza returns to the town he knew as a child a few years after the war is when he meets Afiya and their stories intersect. I really enjoyed the build up of their relationship developing. It is also only at this stage of the story that we begin to learn more about Hamza’s life before the war in which he volunteered to join the Schutztruppe. When we learn about his childhood and life beforehand, his reasons for volunteering become clearer.
At times Afiya was subjected to misogynistic values in a patriarchal society that was often upheld by the main female care giver in her life more than anyone else. Her adoptive father figure was the buffer and intervened in this aspect which spoke of the way it doesn’t always have to be men that utilise patriarchy in a damaging way. Instead, refreshingly it was the three important men in her life who treated her with the most respect, empowered her and valued her.
I really enjoyed the use of Kiswahili words throughout the book, primarily in the dialogue but occasionally used in the omniscient narration as well which usually emphasised the significance of something. There were also German words used in the military setting which demonstrated the colonial presence.
Gurnah was able to tell the story in such a way that at times it was very close to the main characters, conveying their inner feelings but at many times the narration also stepped back and told of what was happening around the characters; what was occurring in the war throughout the region. This provided both the personal and intimate aspect and also the wider historical context. The transition always felt completely natural and added depth to the novel.
The last portion of the story began to take a turn I didn’t expect and as it progressed, following the life of Hamza and Afiya’s son, it became even more compelling. The ending of the story was so powerfully moving and evocative, I closed the book and sat in awe for a moment with a tear in my eye. It will stay in my mind for some time.
This is an important story of the ways colonialism impacted on a land and it’s people. It showed how the native people were used by their oppressors to fight wars that had nothing to do with them. It gave a personal side, names, personalities and faces, albeit fictional, to the immeasurable number killed in the war that weren’t even bothered to be counted because that’s how little they were valued. It showed the gaping hole for the families left behind who had no idea what happened to their loved ones and no way of finding out.
It will always be the time for these stories.
Thank you to Bloomsbury Publishing for the review copy for which I gave an honest review. (less)
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Carol Jones
Apr 23, 2021Carol Jones rated it it was amazing
My first novel by Abdulrazak Gurnah was such a revelation. Initially I picked up the title as it is set during the early 20th century in east Africa where the Germans and British wrangle for dominion over the lives and heritage of its peoples. It promised to explore the interlinked lives of Ilyas, Afiya and Hamza who had been sold, stolen or given away, and how they survived in the shadow of war.
The novel certainly delivered on this promise and much more. Masterful storytelling carries readers into the characters' world, revealing stories within stories and subtly playing with us so that our understanding of the characters and their situations is constantly evolving and surprising us.
Irony, empathy, complexity, all are at play here in a marvellously compelling drama, full of humanity. The prose flows so easily, building a complex picture of ordinary lives and loves set against troubled times.
(less)
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Archana
Oct 07, 2021Archana rated it really liked it
I was searching for historical fiction that described life under a colonialism apart from English. I picked this one because it described life under German colonialism, but also it had a lot of Indians, that would come to eastern Africa to do business. It was not super remarkable, but it captured that time period perfectly. And now I am surprised to know the author won the Nobel Literature prize, so I decided to add the book, with a review
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Jennifer Li
Nov 08, 2020Jennifer Li rated it liked it
I knew little about this book and the subject matter but I am trying to be open to more diverse reads and Afterlives seemed to fit this description. Abdulrazak Gurnah, a Tanzanian author, offers a complex and revelatory insight into lives of citizens living in war-torn Deutsch-Ostafrika - East Africa that was colonized by Germany between late 1800's and early 1900's. The book recounts the tale of a number of characters that stem from the introduction of Khalifa who meets the merchant Amur Biashara. From there Gurnah weaves the hardship of day-to-day citizens to try to earn a living, survive and live a stable life, all in the backdrop of uprisings, colonial resistance and violence and eventually the upcoming WWI that the Germans have to prepare for. Hamza, a survivor Schutztruppe Askari (local soldier supporting the German military), returns to his hometown where fate brings him into Khalifa's world and Hamza befriends a girl named Afiya. Through Hamza, we witness the brutalities of oppressed local soldiers fighting for the German oppressors during the War, but we also witness heartfelt healing and trust being restored through Hamza and Afiya's relationship, as well as Khalifa and other characters in this interesting read.
It is definitely eye opening to learn more about the impact of colonialism in East Africa and the significant impact of the World War even in countries that were not directly involved in the conflict. This book was at times challenging to read as there is an assumption of knowledge of the history of colonial East Africa during the German regime, and Gurnah uses a number of local terms - German, East African language and Arabic - which were distracting to read. The book covers a lot of historical detail and change which made it difficult to keep up and also concentrate on the fictional stories of the characters in the story.
While I enjoyed reading the book overall, I did have to endure a number of pages to get to the end as I felt the story did not flow that well, and seemed to stutter at times, in haste to cover all the historical factual details, as well as move the fictional story of the characters along. A compelling read overall but it can probably be fine-tuned.
Thank you to Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for approving this advanced read in exchange for an independent review. (less)
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Greg Morris
Jul 01, 2021Greg Morris rated it it was amazing
After seeing a number of reviews commenting on how they failed to connect with characters due to the writing style, I was a little sceptical. I found the style to be an engaging one and despite the 3rd person narrative, it was easy to understand the perspective of the character in focus. This style also alows you to make your own decisions about the characters with no one character coming to dominate as the "main character". I absolutely loved this book I found the authors ability to create believable and familiar yet exotic settings a great way in which to engage the reader. This book discusses an ever better understood period of history and whilst not shying away from colonial atrocities, Abdulrazak choses to focus on some of the more insideous elements of colonial regimes. Even in acts of kindness, the German characters in this book never truly view the African natives as anything close to equal and despite the final 3rd of the book moving away from these topics, the ending brings this back into focus in a brilliant way. (less)
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