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Desertion Paperback – 1 May 2006

by
Abdulrazak Gurnah (Author)
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Abdulrazak Gurnah (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars 6 customer reviews
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Product details

  • Paperback: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; New edition edition (1 May 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0747578958
  • ISBN-13: 978-0747578956
  • Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 1.8 x 19.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 481,704 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

‘An absorbing novel about abandonment and loss … Gurnah writes beautifully’ -- Daily Telegraph

‘As beautifully written and pleasurable as anything I’ve read … Gurnah’s portrait is the work of a maestro’ -- Guardian

‘Impressive ... a careful and often heartfelt exploration of the way memory inevitably consoles and disappoints us’ -- Sunday Times

‘This novel movingly examines the absences eating away at the core of all of its characters’ -- Sunday Telegraph

From the Publisher

The breakthrough book from the highly acclaimed author of By the Sea. For fans of Ahdaf Soueif’s The Map of Love and Amitav Ghosh’s The Glass Palace

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4.0 out of 5 stars"To be certain of anything is the beginning of bigotry."
By Mary Whipple HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER on 2 Jan. 2006
Format: Hardcover
When Martin Pearce, an Englishman nearly dead from thirst, staggers out of the desert and into the life of Hassanali, a shopseller in a village south of Mombasa, he sets in motion events and themes which echo throughout the novel. It is 1899, and Pearce has been traveling on foot for four days. Believing that "This [man] was a burden [God] had...chosen for him," Hassanali enlists his wife Malika, and his sister Rehana to help care for him until a local British official brings him back to "civilization." When Pearce returns to thank Hassanali, he becomes enamored of Rehana, and their eventual affair becomes a scandal in both the British and the Indian/Muslim communities.
Part II, which takes place fifty years later in Zanzibar, focuses on a new set of characters--two brothers, Amin and Rashid, and their sister Farida. The story of Amin's love for Jamila, which soon unfolds, bears some resemblance to that of Pearce and Rehana--both loves involve cultural and religious taboos and raise questions about the ability of love to survive such difficulties.
Part III, which further develops the stories of Amin, Rashid, and Farida, takes place about fifteen years after that. Amin is still in Zanzibar, while Rashid is studying in England. The British have granted Zanzibar independence, but a revolution has taken place. The traumas of this period and its bloodshed, primarily in the 1970s, keep the brothers apart, and, because of censorship in Zanzibar, their communications are difficult and vague. "A Continuation," the five-page epilogue, eventually connects all the stories and resolves some unanswered questions.Read more ›
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3.0 out of 5 starsAn illuminating insight into forbidden love
By DubaiReader VINE VOICE on 23 Nov. 2010
Format: Paperback
This was not an easy read. There was something about the style in which it was written, almost poetic in places, that made to mere 260 pages feel like a tome.
I chose to read the book because it is written by a Zanzibari author and I was visiting Zanzibar at the time. From this perspective I found I could relate more to the second half of the book, set in the 50's in the capital, Stone Town. Many of the buildings mentioned I had walked past or visited and this lifted the book for me.
The first half was set at the turn of the previous century and some of the historical detail was quite dense.

There are five main characters in Part I; the shop keeper Hassanali, his sister Rehana and his wife Malika are all natives of Zanzibar but with Indian descent. Martin Pearce, an English adventurer stumbles into their lives after being abandoned in the desert by his Somali guides and falls for Rehana. Frederick Turner, a representative of the British colonial rule, houses and befriends Martin. Apart from a lot of background description and rambling, not a lot happens.
The move to part II is jerky, without explanation, and involves a family in Zanzibar; mother, father, daughter Farida and two sons, Rashid and Amin. Amin falls for Jamila, an older woman with a chequered history. At the time we are not told that she is the grand-daughter of Martin and Rehana but I don't think it would hurt to mention that here as it makes the story more comprehensible and I would have prefered to have known how the characters were significant. This was a less historical section which gave a strong feel for the importance of shame and appearances in the Muslim community and I felt for the lovers in their trials.
Finally the parts are brought together and the background story revealed.

I had previously read By the Sea and found it hard going so the style was no surprise this time around. If you are travelling to Zanzibar, however, then I would highly recommend this book.
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4.0 out of 5 starsAn East African saga
By Ralph Blumenau TOP 500 REVIEWER on 2 Dec. 2010
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
The blurb tells us that the story begins in 1899 in a coastal village near Mombasa in what was then called the East Africa Protectorate and would later be called Kenya, and that it is about a passionate love affair between Martin Pearce, an Englishman, and Rahana, a Muslim girl, but we have to wait until page 108 before that starts. By then the novel has established several characters: three Englishmen - Pearce; a District Officer called Frederick Turner; and a coarse estate manager called Burton - and Rahana's family - her brother Hassanali and her sister-in-law Malika. It has also brought to life the local scene, with its African, Arab and Indian population and the customs of the villagers. The plot so far has been on the thin side; but we have learnt the history of the area and the attitude of the British towards the local people mainly from several didactic passages in the dialogue between the Englishmen.

A mere twelve pages after the love affair has started, it has reached its conclusion, and so has Part I. In Part II we are suddenly brought into an apparently unrelated story, with a different set of characters, this time set in Zanzibar a little over 50 years after the earlier story. These new characters - two brothers, their sister, and their parents - and their relationship to each other are well described (that between the brothers is particularly touching), but again there isn't much of a plot. The older brother, Amin, is in love with a girl - and like the love affair in Part I, this one runs in the face of disapproval - in the first part on account of race, in the second part at least on account of the girl's background and uncertain reputation.

Part III is written twenty years later, in the 1980s.Read more ›
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