Literary Fiction spotlight
Theft
by Abdulrazak Gurnah
Three young Tanzanians come of age as tourism, NGOs and old family debts rearrange Zanzibar around them.
Buy the book
The first novel from the Nobel laureate since his prize: a story of servitude, ambition and small betrayals in late-twentieth-century Tanzania.
Publisher's blurb
Synopsis
Karim, Fauzia and Badar are bound together by a household where one of them is staff and the others are family. Gurnah follows them from Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar as independence-era promises curdle into a new economy of visitors and volunteers, and as each of them steals something - a chance, a reputation, a life.
The editorial feature
Quiet, patient, quietly furious. Gurnah's gift is for showing how colonial arrangements survive by changing costume, and the final section's handling of a false accusation is a small masterpiece of restraint.
Book details
- Genre
- Literary Fiction
- Released
- 18 March 2025
- Publisher
- Riverhead Books
- Extent
- 256 pages
- Featured on
- 18 March 2025
Where to buy
Theft is available from these retailers.
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