Abdulrazak Gurnah

Restless, ambitious Ilyas was stolen from his parents by the Schutzruppe askari, the German colonial troops; after years away, he returns to his village to find his parents gone, and his sister Afiya given away.

Hamza was not stolen, but was sold; he has come of age in the army, at the right hand of an officer whose control has ensured his protection but marked him for life. Hamza does not have words for how the war ended for him. Returning to the town of his childhood, all he wants is work, however humble, and security - and the beautiful Afiya.

As these interlinked friends and survivors come and go, live and work and fall in love, the shadow of a new war lengthens and darkens, ready to snatch them up and carry them away.

For seven-year-old Salim, the pillars upholding his small universe - his indifferent father, his adored uncle, his treasured books, the daily routines of government school and Koran lessons - seem unshakeable. But it is the 1970s, and the winds of change are blowing through Zanzibar: suddenly Salim's father is gone, and the island convulses with violence and corruption the wake of a revolution. It will only be years later, making his way through an alien and hostile London, that Salim will begin to understand the shame and exploitation festering at the heart of his family's history. 

One day long ago, Abbas slipped away without saying a word and never went back. And then another day, forty three years later, he collapsed by the front door of his house in a small English town. He has never told anyone about his past, and now Abbas is incapable of speech. His illness brings home his children Jamal and Hanna; and amidst the dark silence, the truth seeps out. Moving from Africa to Britain and across the seas between, Gurnah explores how our lives are shaped by the places and secrets of our past.