By the Sea (2001) by Abdulrazak Gurnah
Blurb from a review in the New Internationalist:
"Set in two seaside towns half-a-world apart, the book opens as Saleh Omar arrives in Britain on a dank November day to claim asylum. … Although he understands every word said to him, he pretends to be unable to speak English and the immigration officials call upon Latif Mahmud, an expatriate academic, to translate. Mahmud’s links with Omar are much closer than a shared exile from their homeland, the Indian Ocean island of Zanzibar. As Omar’s application for refugee status is processed, the men tell their stories and the plot becomes a complex maze, winding back upon itself in an intricate pattern of trickery and betrayal, lies, debts and revenge. The personal tales are set against the nightmarish post-colonial history of Zanzibar. … By the Sea … explores, with great depth and subtlety, the human histories behind the words we bandy about so freely and with so little understanding: exile, dispossession, displaced person, refugee, asylum seeker."
P.W. "By the Sea (Book)." New Internationalist 343 (March 2002): 31.
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