Desertion by Abdulrazak Gurnah

A masterwork by the 2021 Nobel Prize winner in Literature, in which the consequences of an illicit love affair reverberate from the heyday of the British empire to the aftermath of African independence

Early one morning in 1899, an Englishman named Martin Pearce stumbles out of the desert into an East African coastal town and collapses at the feet of Hassanali, a local shopkeeper. When Hassanali’s sister, the beautiful and disillusioned Rehana, nurses Pearce back to health, a love affair sparks, with consequences that will ripple decades into the future, when another clandestine affair bursts into flame, with equally unforeseen and dramatic consequences. In this devastating and ingeniously spun tale, the Nobelist Abdulrazak Gurnah brilliantly dramatizes the personal and political legacies of colonialism.

Story Locale: East Africa (present-day Kenya and Zanzibar), London

Abdulrazak Gurnah, winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature, is the author of ten novels, including Paradise (shortlisted for the Booker Prize), By the Sea (longlisted for the Booker and a finalist for the LA Times Book Award), and Desertion. Born and raised in Zanzibar, he is Professor Emeritus of English and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England.

Author Residence: Canterbury, England