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Admiring Silence: By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this ebook
By the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature
'There is a wonderful sardonic eloquence to this unnamed narrator's voice' Financial Times
'I don't think I've ever read a novel that is so convincingly and hauntingly sad about the loss of home' Independent on Sunday
_____________________
He thinks, as he escapes from Zanzibar, that he will probably never return, and yet the dream of studying in England matters above that.
Things do not happen quite as he imagined – the school where he teaches is cramped and violent, he forgets how it feels to belong. But there is Emma, beautiful, rebellious Emma, who turns away from her white, middle-class roots to offer him love and bear him a child. And in return he spins stories of his home and keeps her a secret from his family.
Twenty years later, when the barriers at last come down in Zanzibar, he is able and compelled to go back. What he discovers there, in a story potent with truth, will change the entire vision of his life.
'There is a wonderful sardonic eloquence to this unnamed narrator's voice' Financial Times
'I don't think I've ever read a novel that is so convincingly and hauntingly sad about the loss of home' Independent on Sunday
_____________________
He thinks, as he escapes from Zanzibar, that he will probably never return, and yet the dream of studying in England matters above that.
Things do not happen quite as he imagined – the school where he teaches is cramped and violent, he forgets how it feels to belong. But there is Emma, beautiful, rebellious Emma, who turns away from her white, middle-class roots to offer him love and bear him a child. And in return he spins stories of his home and keeps her a secret from his family.
Twenty years later, when the barriers at last come down in Zanzibar, he is able and compelled to go back. What he discovers there, in a story potent with truth, will change the entire vision of his life.
Author
Abdulrazak Gurnah
Abdulrazak Gurnah is the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. He is the author of ten novels, including Paradise (The New Press), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Award. He lives in Canterbury, England.
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Reviews for Admiring Silence
Rating: 4.018518444444445 out of 5 stars
4/5
27 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The unnamed narrator of this novel flees his native Zanzibar as a young man, traveling to UK as a student. For twenty years, he lives as a sort of permanent alien in UK, finding it easier, when telling people about his origins, to invent stories about Zanzibar and his family, rather than try to explain the real complexities of his family life and origins. Living in the assumption that he will never return home, he also does not tell his family in Zanzibar about his British partner, Emma, or Amelia, their daughter. Then, the opportunity to visit "home" brings his created stories into collision. An engaging and intriguing look at the plight of the "postcolonial's" relationship to "home" and the world.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The nameless narrator is a Zanzibarian man in his 40s who emigrates to the UK as a teenager, makes a life for himself in London, and decides to travel back home to visit his mother and family, who he hasn't seen in nearly 20 years.He is a dishonest and deceitful, yet well meaning man, and is incapable of decisive action -- his life is chosen for him. His uncle in Zanzibar chooses to send him to the UK. His uncle with whom he stays in London makes arrangements for him to enter the University of London and become a teacher. While attending university he meets Emma, a white Londoner, and she chooses him to be her mate. Emma decides to stop taking The Pill, and as a result she becomes pregnant. Emma's love for him gives him the strength and courage to become a reasonably good student, but his career as a grade school teacher in the public school system is chosen for him. He can barely tolerate the school and his students, but he does not seek a more fulfilling position. His daughter Amelia learns to despise him, as does Emma.His only actions involve the deception of those he loves: Emma, Amelia, and his mother and family in Zanzibar. Although he does not love them, he deceives Emma's parents as well, and no one truly knows him. For that matter, he deceives himself: he does not know what he wants from life, and believes that he is a failure, but does not hate himself for this, and does not do anything about it.He is welcomed home as a success story, and quickly re-establishes close ties to his mother and siblings. However, he does not tell his family of his secret life in London with Emma and Amelia, and circumstances cause him to disgrace his family, and for his mother to disown him.I enjoyed Admiring Silence, but not nearly as much as his novels "By the Sea" and "Desertion", as the main supporting characters were not as well described as they could have been, in particular Emma and the narrator's mother.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I wanted To Listen To an audiobook and only got a Text version
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Every sentence is beautiful, and packed with layers of meaning. His writing is a gift.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A beautifully written and insightful depiction of the social outcomes of British colonialism. An African in England has lived with an English woman for years and they have a teenage daughter. He decides to visit his African family with whom he’s had minimum contact over the years. When he arrives he finds they have been organising his marriage to a young African woman. They are devastated to learn of what he calls his marriage to Emma and the shame and upset all round is palpable.
He leaves for England longing to rejoin his “ wife”. On the flight he strikes up conversation with a beautiful woman whose husband has dumped her.
After mislaying his passport he joins Emma and that evening learns she has found someone else and is leaving. Complete devastation ensues.
The story ends with him considering contacting the beauty he met on the plane.
At the airport, after fuss about his mislaid passport he returns with Emma to,their house only to learn she’s found someone else.
Book preview
Admiring Silence - Abdulrazak Gurnah
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