"Back in Zanzibar, Saleh Omar had a furniture shop, owned a house, was a husband and father. Now, newly arrived at London's Gatwick Airport, he is just another asylum seeker. A mahogany box of fragrant ud is his most precious possession, silence his only protection. Meanwhile, Latif Mahmud, a young professor, lives quietly alone in his London flat. When the two encounter each other in an English seaside town, the narratives each carries of their shared past begin to unravel -- revealing an infinitely more fascinating story of love and betrayal, of seduction and possession, of people struggling for stability amid the maelstrom of their times."--

Portrait

Abdulrazak Gurnah, winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature, is the author of ten novels. Born and raised in Zanzibar, he is Professor Emeritus of English and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Kent. He lives in Canterbury, England.