Admiring Silence: By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021

(Paperback)

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**By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021** 'There is a wonderful sardonic eloquence to this unnamed narrator's voice' Financial Times 'I don't think I've ever read a novel that is so convincingly and hauntingly sad about the loss of home' Independent on Sunday _____________________ He thinks, as he escapes from Zanzibar, that he will probably never return, and yet the dream of studying in England matters above that. Things do not happen quite as he imagined the school where he teaches is cramped and violent, he forgets how it feels to belong. But there is Emma, beautiful, rebellious Emma, who turns away from her white, middle-class roots to offer him love and bear him a child. And in return he spins stories of his home and keeps her a secret from his family. Twenty years later, when the barriers at last come down in Zanzibar, he is able and compelled to go back. What he discovers there, in a story potent with truth, will change the entire vision of his life.

Reviews

I dont think Ive ever read a novel that is so convincingly and hauntingly sad about the loss of home, the impossible longing to belong -- Michle Roberts * Independent on Sunday *
Abdulrazak Gurnahs fifth novel, Admiring Silence, is his best to date There is a wonderful sardonic eloquence to this unnamed narrators voice, and the playful humour and lack of self-pity which characterises his narrative is totally convincing * Financial Times *
Through a twisting, many-layered narrative, Admiring Silence explores themes of race and betrayal with bitterly satirical insight * Sunday Times *

Author Bio

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.