Novel · A way to begin
Paradise
Abdulrazak Gurnah · 1994
Synopsis
Yusuf is twelve when his father, riddled with debts, hands him over to a rich merchant whom he believes to be his uncle and whom he must serve in order to repay them. From the shop where he grows up to the caravans that push deep into the interior of the continent, he crosses an East Africa of traders, porters and notables, in the last years before the Great War, and discovers what his own freedom is worth in a walled garden that has the air of a paradise.
Context
The book appeared in 1994 and it is to this one that its author owes having been read beyond the academic world. It blends Swahili texts, Quranic and biblical traditions and a debt to Conrad, and tackles head-on the domestic slavery practised in Africa itself. Translated into French the following year, it was translated into Swahili in 2023, under the title Peponi, the first version in the language of the country where it is set.
Who it is for
A coming-of-age novel of ordinary length, translated into French. Nothing to know in advance, except that the action is set before 1914, when East Africa was passing under German administration.
Prizes and reception
A finalist for the Booker and the Whitbread in 1994, it is the book by which its author became known.