Of Human Bondage: Abdulrazak Gurnah’s ‘Paradise’

BULAQ | بولاق

Paradise, by 2021 Nobel Prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah, is the coming-of-age story of Yusuf, a Tanzanian boy sent into debt servitude when his father can't pay back an Arab merchant. Yusuf travels into the interior with “Uncle Aziz” and other vivid characters, to trade with the “savages” there. The story takes place on the cusp of World War I, set in the wake of mass enslavement and the advent of European colonialism and interwoven with Yusuf's story from the Quran. Gurnah himself belonged to the Arab elite of Zanzibar, and fled to the UK after a revolution there in the 1960s.

Show Notes

In Episode 84, we discussed the colonial relationship between Oman and East Africa in Jokha Alharthi's The Bitter Orange Tree.

Abdulrazak Gurnah's Nobel lecture

Excerpt on Kilwa from Ibn Battuta's RihlatTanzania-Oman Historic Ties: The Past and Present, by Oswald Masebo

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