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Afterlives cover art

Afterlives

Written by: Abdulrazak Gurnah
Narrated by: Damian Lynch
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Publisher's Summary

Bloomsbury presents Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah, read by Damian Lynch.

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.
©2020 Abdulrazak Gurnah (P)2020 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
World War I Genre Fiction
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Critic Reviews

"One of Africa's greatest living writers." (Giles Foden) 

"Exquisite." (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) 

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Profile image for Deepanjan Roy

Life & Times in Colonial East Africa

A sweeping memoir of the lives and times of Colonial East Africa, Afterlives is tender, but perhaps, does not tie the different threads of the story together.

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