Desertion: A Novel
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Desertion may be the deepest wound of all, whether it is that of a lover, family member, or countryman. In this seventh novel, Gurnah explores the joy, pain, and sorrow of connection, then desertion, through several generations. European colonialism is at its zenith when one fateful morning in 1899 the unexpected appearance of a ragged specter of an Englishman, Martin Pearce, appears out of the East African desert dawn and upsets the equilibrium of Hannsannali's simple household. The narrator shows each participant's point of view of the developments leading up to the ill-fated love affair between Pearce and his Muslim rescuer's sister, Rehana. Skipping forward in time to Zanzibar in the 1950s, readers encounter another pair of illicit lovers, Amin and Jamila, whose story is traced back through the generations to that original pair. Thrown into the mix is the voice of Rashid, Amin's brother, who leaves Africa as a young man for a university education and experiences the alienation of racism in England. Weaving a tapestry with threads of hope, misunderstanding, and regret upon a background of the struggles for African independence, racism, and cross-cultural intermarriage into a lyrical novel, Gurnah, masterful storyteller and observer of human frailty and nobility, once again provides a window into East African postcolonial culture and adds more luster to his literary credentials. --Laurie Sundborg Copyright 2005 Booklist

Against the backdrop of colonial Africa, Booker-nominated Gurnah (By the Sea; Paradise) crafts a dense, decade-straddling story of cross-cultural love and its repercussions in his seventh novel, which begins in Zanzibar in 1899. After Somali guides abandon him in the desert, English orientalist Martin Pearce is rescued and cared for by Indian Muslims, Hassalani and his sister, Rehana, until a government official finds him. Martin is a sympathetic hero, somehow more enlightened than the European colonialists, for whom racism is endemic. When he returns to thank Hassalani for sheltering him, he falls for the beautiful Rehana, and they begin a transgressive affair. The narrative then leaps forward to the late 1950s (just before Zanzibar's independence from colonial rule) to follow the lives of two brothers: Rashid, who will go to London on scholarship, and Amin, who embarks on a passionate, forbidden affair with Jamila, the sophisticated, divorced granddaughter of Rehana and Martin. Though the shift in time between Part I and II diffuses this richly textured novel's momentum, the author's luminous prose makes it easy to forgive the disjointedness as he explores Africa's emergence from European rule and the continuing fallout from Rehana and Martin's near-unthinkable union. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Gurnah's seventh novel (after By the Sea) is a spirited horse straining at the bit, so it is a great pity that the author doesn't loosen the reins more and let it run. The plot is promising: in the late 19th century, a half-dead Englishman is discovered on the edge of the desert in an African town by Hassanali, who with his sister Rehana nurses him back to health. Rehana then begins an illicit and doomed affair with the foreigner. Its repercussions are felt generations later when a young man, Amin, falls helplessly in love with Rehana's granddaughter just before Zanzibar's violent struggle for independence. Meanwhile, Amin's brother, Rashid, wins a scholarship to study in England, where he experiences his own bittersweet coming of age. The novel's final chapters focus on his slow assimilation and painful separation from his family during Africa's intense political unrest. Gurnah's prolixity sometimes obscures evocative details, and the book's sense of immediacy is uneven. As a result, this novel gives a solid showing-Gurnah is certainly an accomplished narrator-while never breaking free of the pack. For larger literary fiction collections only.-Prudence Peiffer, Cambridge, MA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The divisive legacy of colonialism afflicts three generations of African and English families in the Zanzibar native (now British) author's moving yet ungainly seventh novel. An initially unidentified narrator reveals events following the 1899 appearance of orientalist Martin Pearce in an unnamed village on Africa's east coast, in what was then the Uganda Protectorate. Pearce (who had been robbed and beaten by his African guides) is taken in by Muslim "shopseller" Hassanali Zakariya. Later, having been rescued from his rescuer by fellow Englishman Frederick Turner (a district officer), when Pearce returns to thank Hassanali's family, he falls in love with the shopseller's beautiful sister Rehana. What happens next is withheld, pending lengthy chunks of historical and ethnographic background information--and the story leaps ahead to the early 1950s, as Gurnah (By the Sea, 2001, etc.) traces the fortunes of three siblings (in what was then Zanzibar): underachieving, virginal Farida and her brothers, Amin and Rashid (the latter, we gradually learn, has attempted to piece together the earlier story of Rehana and Pearce, whose relation to Rashid's family will be even later revealed in a flurry of convoluted afterthoughts). The story does become more involving, as Gurnah details the bookish Rashid's uneasy relationship with the confident Amin, Amin's doomed love affair with a divorced woman (Jamila) who leads "a life of secrets and sins" and is involved in anticolonial political agitation, Farida's own love for a man she cannot have--and Rashid's departure to study in London (where he achieves second-class citizenship and learns "how to live with disregard"). But the complicated links joining Rehana, Pearce, Turner and Rashid's family are themselves kept secret for so long that, while the opening chapters here take forever to build momentum, its concluding ones are hurried and overcrowded with last-minute explanations. Probably a partially autobiographical story, but one that Gurnah has not fully shaped into a coherent narrative. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Desertion may be the deepest wound of all, whether it is that of a lover, family member, or countryman. In this seventh novel, Gurnah explores the joy, pain, and sorrow of connection, then desertion, through several generations. European colonialism is at its zenith when one fateful morning in 1899 the unexpected appearance of a ragged specter of an Englishman, Martin Pearce, appears out of the East African desert dawn and upsets the equilibrium of Hannsannali's simple household. The narrator shows each participant's point of view of the developments leading up to the ill-fated love affair between Pearce and his Muslim rescuer's sister, Rehana. Skipping forward in time to Zanzibar in the 1950s, readers encounter another pair of illicit lovers, Amin and Jamila, whose story is traced back through the generations to that original pair. Thrown into the mix is the voice of Rashid, Amin's brother, who leaves Africa as a young man for a university education and experiences the alienation of racism in England. Weaving a tapestry with threads of hope, misunderstanding, and regret upon a background of the struggles for African independence, racism, and cross-cultural intermarriage into a lyrical novel, Gurnah, masterful storyteller and observer of human frailty and nobility, once again provides a window into East African postcolonial culture and adds more luster to his literary credentials. ((Reviewed June 1 & 15, 2005)) Copyright 2005 Booklist Reviews.

Gurnah's seventh novel (after By the Sea) is a spirited horse straining at the bit, so it is a great pity that the author doesn't loosen the reins more and let it run. The plot is promising: in the late 19th century, a half-dead Englishman is discovered on the edge of the desert in an African town by Hassanali, who with his sister Rehana nurses him back to health. Rehana then begins an illicit and doomed affair with the foreigner. Its repercussions are felt generations later when a young man, Amin, falls helplessly in love with Rehana's granddaughter just before Zanzibar's violent struggle for independence. Meanwhile, Amin's brother, Rashid, wins a scholarship to study in England, where he experiences his own bittersweet coming of age. The novel's final chapters focus on his slow assimilation and painful separation from his family during Africa's intense political unrest. Gurnah's prolixity sometimes obscures evocative details, and the book's sense of immediacy is uneven. As a result, this novel gives a solid showing-Gurnah is certainly an accomplished narrator-while never breaking free of the pack. For larger literary fiction collections only.-Prudence Peiffer, Cambridge, MA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Against the backdrop of colonial Africa, Booker-nominated Gurnah (By the Sea; Paradise) crafts a dense, decade-straddling story of cross-cultural love and its repercussions in his seventh novel, which begins in Zanzibar in 1899. After Somali guides abandon him in the desert, English orientalist Martin Pearce is rescued and cared for by Indian Muslims, Hassalani and his sister, Rehana, until a government official finds him. Martin is a sympathetic hero, somehow more enlightened than the European colonialists, for whom racism is endemic. When he returns to thank Hassalani for sheltering him, he falls for the beautiful Rehana, and they begin a transgressive affair. The narrative then leaps forward to the late 1950s (just before Zanzibar's independence from colonial rule) to follow the lives of two brothers: Rashid, who will go to London on scholarship, and Amin, who embarks on a passionate, forbidden affair with Jamila, the sophisticated, divorced granddaughter of Rehana and Martin. Though the shift in time between Part I and II diffuses this richly textured novel's momentum, the author's luminous prose makes it easy to forgive the disjointedness as he explores Africa's emergence from European rule and the continuing fallout from Rehana and Martin's near-unthinkable union. (July) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.