Paradise (original 1994; edition 1995)

Set in Tanzania in the very late 19th century/early 20th century, Paradise is the coming-of-age story of Yusuf, who is sold by his father to his uncle for repayment of debts. Yusuf is not brought into the house as a member of the family however, but works and sleeps in the family store with one of his uncle's employees. Uncle Aziz is a trader and often leaves on long journeys to trade with villages in the interior. When the handsome, bright and likable Aziz is 16, he is finally asked to accompany his uncle on such a journey, and that fascinating journey is chronicled in this book. Aziz is a more mature young man when he returns, and while his uncle is away on another journey, he makes contact with the women in the family home, and is immediately smitten by his uncle's younger wife, sister to the shop employee. Can that end well?

I have read four other Gurnah novels, and have found them all interesting and well-written. My favorite has been the first I read: [By the Sea] (2001), but [Paradise] falls in neatly just behind that. The former is a novel of a more mature writer, but both novels betray the author's talent for storytelling.

And this novel is terrific storytelling. I blew through this book, riveted by the tale of young Yuself. In the process of his coming-of-age story, the reader gets a kind of an oral history of the region from the time of Arab settlement and the Arab slave trade forward, and also gets a portrait of life at the end of the 19th century just as the Germans are beginning to make their presence known. The book is full of vibrant settings, and interesting characters, in a world where indigenous black Africans must coexist with those of Arab and Indian descent, Christian missionaries, European farmers and others. ( )

First time I read this work by Abdulrazak Gurnah. Very well written by this African writer. It's about a story of Yusuf, an East African boy who was taken by his Uncle Aziz from his family to work for him. A curious boy, Yusuf meet few characters that influences how he sees things in life.
Would be great to see this become a movie one day! ( )

Gurnah's writing is edged with poetry that brings both humor and heartbreak to nearly every character and scene. This book is one of those journeys that should be read and discussed, and is not just wonderfully told and entertaining, but necessary. Absolutely recommended. ( )

This is a seemingly simple Bildungsroman, set in east Africa in the years before the First World War—but beneath the coming of age story of Yusuf, a slave sold by his father to settle a debt, lies a complex exploration of slavery, religion, cultural interactions, colonialism, innocence and honour. Gurnah has an immense gift for using understated language to call up vivid imagery—there's no overblown description here, no moralising, and the reader nonetheless gets a strong sense of the region which would later become Tanzania at the turn of the twentieth century. A fascinating book, which dovetails very nicely with the nonfiction reading in African history which I've been doing this semester. ( )

This is an incredibly wonderful account of a boy's journey to manhood in East Africa. The boy is born free but ultimately is sold by his parents to pay a debt, although the boy is too young to understand at the time. The author is masterful at bringing forward the curiosity and angst of Yusuf as his slowly maturing sensibilities struggle with things he intuits but cannot understand in the more mature people around him. His 'older brother' Khalil, another young man serving the master, is a strong but not obvious foil, who also becomes a tragic character as the story progresses. At once the book juxtaposes slavery and freedom, African tribalism vs. Islamic natives, youth and age, innocence and manipulation, dependence and independence. A must read book. ( )