Gurnah here focuses, as usual, with questions of identity, family, relationships, and belonging. This particular novel took me a little longer to settle into than the others I’ve read (Paradise, Gravel Heart, and Desertion) but, as always, once I get into his flow, I enjoyed his people and places very much. The several plots revolve around the colonial experience in German East Africa (generally what is Tanzania today). There story lines gradually intersect allowing Gurnah to address lives within cultures as well as lives affected by the meeting of cultures. He develops a number of intriguing issues and then, abruptly, the reader reaches the last quarter or so of the book. I felt as if Gurnah had suddenly taken his outline and sketched it in, allowing him to end the book as quickly as possible. Where the first three-fourths of the book were almost leisurely with Gurnah lingering over scenes and situations, the story of the last quarter was at lightning speed and seemed intended to get the book over with. Gurnah took his narrative threads, filled in some details, and rushed to the end. Why he chose to write this last part of the book as he did baffled me at the time and still baffles me. I found it enormously disappointing. Having taken his time to draw people and circumstances that were beautifully detailed, the last quarter of the novel seemed simply rushed and unaccountably glossed over and, in the end, diminished the book as a whole. A real pity. ( )

Do vencedor do prêmio Nobel de literatura, um romance arrebatador que tem como pano de fundo os efeitos brutais do colonialismo na África Oriental.

Deutsch-Ostafrika, início do século XX. Os colonizadores avançam violentamente pela África, dizimando povos e impondo regras e costumes. No litoral do oceano Índico, Khalifa e Asha estão tentando ter o primeiro filho e logo conhecem Ilyas, que chega à cidade para trabalhar. Ainda menino, ele fora raptado por um askari das tropas coloniais e anos depois descobre que os pais morreram e que sua irmã, Afiya, está vivendo em condições deploráveis. Já Hamza chega em busca de emprego e segurança e lá acaba se apaixonando por Afiya. Num período de lembranças traumáticas, ele integrara a Schutztruppe, lutando contra o próprio povo ao lado dos colonizadores.

Neste romance magistral, Abdulrazak Gurnah joga luz sobre as consequências devastadoras da opressão e do colonialismo sobre todo um continente. Enquanto os personagens vivem, trabalham e se apaixonam, pairam sobre eles o fantasma da guerra e a possibilidade de que novos combates arrasem a vida de todos mais uma vez.

"Um relato compassivo do que há de incomum nas vidas comuns, Sobrevidas combina uma narrativa apaixonante com uma prosa cuja rara precisão emocional confirma o lugar de Gurnah entre os mais destacados estilistas da literatura inglesa contemporânea." — Evening Standard

A less formal review...

I chased this book when it came out in 2020 ...being a serious Gurnah acolyte. I began to read it, but partially into the story I panicked (?)...what if this is his last book?! I set it aside, half read.

...Until yesterday. As the rain fell and lightning and thunder kept up the drums, I was in Africa with Gurnah. I read [Afterlives] almost cover to cover (saved the last ten pages or so for this morning). Another wonderful read from a master storyteller, who infuses his stories with great empathy.

My first Gurnah was 2001's [By the Sea] which was published in the US while I was still working at the bookstore, before LT. I have been chasing and readjng his work for 22 years now... ( )

Afterlives, narrator, Abdul Razakgurnah, author; Damian Lynch, narrator
We all have a before and an after in our lives. This is expressed perfectly in this novel, as it uses the lives of three young men, in an India under the influence of Germany, and the sister that is the bridge that connects them all to define life there. In the simple lives of the characters, born into extreme deprivation caused by, among other things, poverty, superstition and illiteracy, on or about the turn of the 20th century, it was common, though cruel, practice for parents to sell their children into marriage, bondage or servitude to save themselves or other family members from starvation.
Each of the men featured, Khalifa, Ilyas and Hamza, are connected through Ilyas' sister, Afiya. Khalifa and his wife rescued Afiya from the abusive family she was left with when his friend Ilyas went away to join the German military, even though they had invaded India and friends and family were against the decision. Hamza also joined the German Army to escape from his life. After years of war, he returned, met and married Ilya' sister Afiya. Ilyas' whereabouts were unknown, at that time and remained so for years. Hamza and Afiya had one child whom they named after her brother, Ilyas. The young Ilyas was seemingly possessed by a spirit connected to Ilyas, and he discovers his uncle’s past, after many unsuccessful search efforts.
All of these characters have a before life that improves and then declines, and in some cases, improves again, but all are touched by personal pressure and tragedy, corruption and tyranny, as they struggle to survive in a world without many creature comforts or industrial advances. The author has captured the atmosphere and the history from the German occupation of India, all the way up to, and beyond the Holocaust, with authenticity, as he describes the atmosphere in India and what drove the people of India and and developed their social culture. The people in this novel are largely Muslims, and their devotion, or lack thereof, to the religion, as well as to the lack of real respect for women as other than commodities, is loud and clear.
Khalifa’s parents were an interracial couple. His friend Ilyas fought for Germany, prior to and during the Holocaust, and was practically a personal slave as a military aide, at one time, yet ironically, it was Germany that promoted hateful race laws for which he personally paid a price! From one war to the next, from the beginning to the middle of the century, the before and after of their lives…from poverty and bondage, from war to peace, from abuse to freedom, the reader's eyes are opened. The book is not an easy read with its stories that travel back-and-forth in time and from character to character, but it is so powerfully written, you can’t put it down. All of the characters' lives are thrown into chaos because of decisions made that are based on the limited information available to them, and their circumstances at the time. Survival, superstition, cruelty, ignorance, and opinion governed their lives. Everything clears up, in the end, as the threads knit together and one sees hope for the future. ( )

Set in East Africa in the late 19th Century-early 20th Century, the story follows several people who are affected by the colonization of Africa. Taken from his home, Ilyas runs off to war, but not before befriending Khalifa. After finding his sister, that he had not known about, he leaves her, Afiya, with Khalifa and his wife, Asha, to raise, and goes off again. As Afiya matures, she meets Hamza, who was also in the war, being chosen to be an assistant to one of the German officers.
The story follows Khalifa, Asha, Hamza, and Afiya, as they navigate the lives during and after the wars in Africa, when the country was being invaded and colonized.
It is beautifully written, but I felt the ending was abrupt. ( )