Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
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.Nobody writes about the world we call postcolonial like Abdulrazak Gurnah. His novels are uncompromising, but also stubbornly humane. They come at their subjects with open eyes, and we need what they see
- Juan Gabriel Vásquez,
A storyteller of understated brilliance … A poignant portrait of love, friendship and betrayal … Powerful, affecting and provocative, <i>Theft </i>is a vital addition to Gurnah’s remarkable body of work, a novel steeped in heartbreak and loss but one that ultimately refuses despair
Guardian
The intricate narrative skilfully reflects the complexities of a post-colonial world in which there are fewer and fewer certainties
Mail on Sunday
<p>A quietly powerful demonstration of storytelling mastery, at once coming-of-age chamber piece and wide-angled post-colonial panorama … narrated in a quicksilver style that gives you the pleasurable sense that you’re putty in the hands of a warm yet clear-eyed authorial intelligence … The conclusion – crackling with jeopardy, ultimately cathartic – moves all <i>Theft</i>’s patiently assembled plotlines into place for a riveting denouement</p>
Observer
<p>A rich, engaging experience … Beautifully done … The reader can only rejoice at Gurnah’s skill in giving us the whole of a life in such nimble scenes</p>
Financial Times
Gurnah’s first novel since being awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature is set in 90s Zanzibar, where three friends from different backgrounds come of age against the complicated backdrop of post-colonial East Africa
i paper, Book of the Month
Timely and captivating … Simple yet elegant
Glamour
<i>Theft</i> is marvelous - a book of incredible scope and unflinching intimacy that leaps fearlessly among its varied cast of characters, written with absolutely devastating emotional precision. Abdulrazak Gurnah has written another classic
- V V Ganeshananthan,
Modesty and modest people are so hard to write about wittily and well yet Abdulrazak Gurnah luminously portrays the early years of a modest young man of no obvious importance. Theft is a morality tale in the truest sense: an unshowy, vividly evocative story about the things that matter, and the flimflam that really doesn’t
- Patrick Gale,
This Nobel winner’s new novel is a hit … Gurnah has a gentle and lyrical style that lets his tightly plotted tale unspool like a fable
London Standard
A spellbinding family saga
Harpers Bazaar, The 25 Best Books Coming Out This Spring
<i>Theft</i> is not just a book. It is an entire universe held together by Abdulrazak Gurnah's beautiful, sensitive prose. In the stories of Badar, Fauzia and Karim rest the questions of entire generations confronting a changing world. But Gurnah also manages to do what only the most accomplished of writers can: In these pages, we begin to recognize the generosity that remains even in moments of pain and chaos. We understand the pockets of light that still exist in those most turbulent days. Gurnah has done it again
- Maaza Mengiste,
A vivid, unpretentious body of work that possesses a powerful dramatic charge by virtue of its focus on the frequently cruel vicissitudes of everyday existence ... <i>Theft</i> is so expertly written, fair-minded and astute
Literary Review
Three young people come of age in post-colonial East Africa in the new novel from the winner of the 2021 Nobel prize in literature. At the turn of the 21st century, change is coming to Tanzania – but will the dreams of young servant boy Badar be realised along with those of his wealthier, more educated friends?
Guardian, The books to look forward to in 2025
A characteristically poised and elegant story about three young people growing up in present-day Tanzania
- Alex Preston, Observer, Fiction to look out for in 2025
<i>Theft </i>by 2021 laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah is the story of the intertwined lives of three young people coming-of-age in postcolonial east Africa
Irish Times, Fiction to look out for in 2025
<i>Theft</i> by Abdulrazak Gurnah is the highly anticipated first novel since Gurnah won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021. Set in Zanzibar in the 1990s, this coming-of-age novel focuses on three very different young people, including Badar, an uneducated servant boy who has never known his parents
BBC
<b>Praise for Abdulrazak Gurnah: </b>'‘Gurnah gathers close all those who were meant to be forgotten, and refuses their erasure
- MAAZA MENGISTE, GUARDIAN
A brilliant and important book for our times, by a wondrous writer
- PHILIPPE SANDS, NEW STATESMAN, Books of the year
Gurnah is a master storyteller
- AMINATTA FORNA, FINANCIAL TIMES
Confirms Gurnah’s place among the outstanding stylists of modern English prose ... 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
As beautifully written and pleasurable as anything I've read ... The work of a maestro
GUARDIAN
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
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
Effortlessly compelling storytelling ... Gurnah excels at depicting the lives of those made small by cruelty and injustice ... You forget that you are reading fiction, it feels so real
- LEILA ABOULELA,
The new novel from the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature - 'a maestro' (Guardian). A captivating story of the intertwined lives of three young people coming-of-age in postcolonial East Africa
Selected as a book to look out for in 2025 by the Guardian, Observer, Irish Times and BBC
‘A poignant portrait of love, friendship and betrayal’ Guardian
‘Storytelling mastery … Gives you the pleasurable sense that you’re putty in the hands of a warm yet clear-eyed authorial intelligence’ Observer‘The reader can only rejoice at Gurnah’s skill in giving us the whole of a life in such nimble scenes’ Financial Times
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What are we given, and what do we have to take for ourselves?
It is the 1990s. Growing up in Zanzibar, three very different young people – Karim, Fauzia and Badar – are coming of age, and dreaming of great possibilities in their young nation. But for Badar, an uneducated servant boy who has never known his parents, it seems as if all doors are closed.
Brought into a lowly position in a great house in Dar es Salaam, Badar finds the first true home of his life – and the friendship of Karim, the young man of the house. Even when a shattering false accusation sees Badar sent away, Karim and Fauzia refuse to turn away from their friend.
But as the three of them take their first steps in love, infatuation, work and parenthood, their bond is tested – and Karim is tempted into a betrayal that will change all of their lives forever.
‘Storytelling mastery, at once coming-of-age chamber piece and wide-angled post-colonial panorama … narrated in a quicksilver style that gives you the pleasurable sense that you’re putty in the hands of a warm yet clear-eyed authorial intelligence’ Observer