By The Sea

BY THE SEA

by Abdulrazak Gurnah

 

Award: Nobel Prize Winner 2001

Nominations: Booker Longlist 2001, LA Times Finalist 2001

 

Date Read: September 24, 2021

 

By The Sea is so well written that for me the story was almost a side-note. Gurnah has a way with language that makes me appreciate English in an entirely new way.

 

Latif and Saleh are refugees from Zanzibar, now living in a quiet and drab part of England. These two were enemies in their native country but now, having reunited so far from home and able to share their perspectives of the drama that has unfolded over the years between their families, a tentative friendship is formed to the surprise of them both.

 

Upon first seeking asylum, Saleh claims to not speak English and arrives under the assumed name Rajab Shabaan, the name of Latif’s deceased father. With not much to do as an older refugee, Saleh wanders through the local furniture stores, which remind him of his successful furniture shop in his home country. 

 

Latif blames Saleh for the decline of his family. Latif believes Saleh cheated his family out of his aunt’s house and his own family’s house, for his mother cheating on his father, for his father becoming an alcoholic. As British ceded control of Zanzibar, Latif escaped the increasing debacle and accepted a scholarship in East Germany to become a dentist. He eventually escaped East Germany and ended up in England. 

 

As Saleh recounts his turmoil – having his house repossessed, being imprisoned, learning his wife and daughter had died and that the country he once knew was still unsafe, Saleh knew too it was time to leave. 

 

What neither man expected was the healing that would come from these mortal enemies meeting. They both seemed to have one boring day after the next in their exile but this budding friendship provides a glimmer of hope and of a more promising future.