HAUNTING HISTORIES

ABDULRAZAK GURNAH WAS AWARDED THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE. AFTERLIVES, HIS MOST RECENT NOVEL, HELPS US SEE WHY

- Mandakini Dubey

AFTERLIVES

by Abdulrazak Gurnah

BLOOMSBURY ₹499; 288 pages

The Tanzanian-British author ABDULRAZAK GURNAH has written several short stories, essays and acclaimed novels

When the Swedish Academy awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature to Abdulrazak Gurnah last year, they cited his ‘dedication to truth’—but this is not truth as an absolute. Instead, as the committee elaborated, ‘In Gurnah’s literary universe, everything is shifting—memories, names, identities… because his project cannot achieve completion in any definitive sense.’