Gravel Heart

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents Gravel Heart by Abdulrazak Gurnah, read by Damian Lynch.

By the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature

‘The elegance and control of Gurnah's writing, and his understanding of how quietly and slowly and repeatedly a heart can break, make this a deeply rewarding novel’ Kamila Shamsie, Guardian
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For seven-year-old Salim, the pillars upholding his small universe – his indifferent father, his adored uncle, his treasured books, the daily routines of government school and Koran lessons – seem unshakeable.

But it is the 1970s, and the winds of change are blowing through Zanzibar: suddenly Salim’s father is gone, and the island convulses with violence and corruption the wake of a revolution. It will only be years later, making his way through an alien and hostile London, that Salim will begin to understand the shame and exploitation festering at the heart of his family’s history.
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‘Riveting … The measured elegance of Gurnah’s prose renders his protagonist in a manner almost uncannily real’ New York Times

‘Glittering ... Each work is different from the last, yet they build into 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’ Telegraph

‘A colourful tale of life in a Zanzibar village, where passions and politics reshape a family… Powerful’ Mail on Sunday

Critics Review

[A] captivating storyteller, with a voice both lyrical and mordant, and an oeuvre haunted by memory and loss. His intricate novels of arrival and departure … reveal, with flashes of acerbic humour, the lingering ties that bind continents, and how competing versions of history collide
Guardian
Gurnah is a master storyteller
Financial Times
Gurnah writes with wonderful insight about family relationships and he folds in the layers of history with elegance and warmth
The Times
Exile has given Gurnah a perspective on the “balance between things” that is astonishing, superb
Observer
Gurnah etches with biting incisiveness the experiences of immigrants exposed to contempt, hostility or patronising indifference on their arrival in Britain
Spectator
Gurnah writes with quiet humour and great affection about pre-revolutionary Zanzibar and its people … Gurnah writes beautifully, with the satisfying assurance of someone who knows how to achieve his effects without undue fuss but with absolute precision
Daily Telegraph
Gurnah evokes his world in poetic prose which is pure and lucid
Guardian
His prose is elegant and evocative
Mail on Sunday
Gurnah has laid powerful imaginative claim to the eastern seaboard of Africa
Independent
Gravel Heart is one of the beautiful novels that lingers in the mind long after reading. Gurnah writes about the clash of worlds with such pathos and elegance.
Amanda Foreman
Glittering...Each work is different from the last, yet they build into 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
Entertainingly intertwines migration and a tale of family drama ... Gurnah has rightly been praised for his masterful storytelling ... An emotive tale about betrayal, families and the East African diaspora
Sunday Herald
A colourful tale of lie in a Zanzibar village, where passions and politics reshape a family ... Expect echoes of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure
Mail on Sunday
Throughout, the elegance and control of Gurnah’s writing, and his understanding of how quietly and slowly and repeatedly a heart can break, make this a deeply rewarding novel
Guardian
The measured elegance of Gurnah’s prose renders his protagonist in a manner almost uncannily real … Gurnah’s portrayal of student immigrant life in Britain is pleasingly deliberate and precise, and also riveting … Even the minor characters in this novel have richly imagined histories that inflect their smallest interactions – one of the loveliest pleasures of this book, and a choice that makes its world exceptionally full
New York Times

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