Lush and vivid, Paradise was one of Abdulrazak Gurnah’s breakthrough works. It centres on the story of a boy in East Africa, just as the region begins to change as a result of German colonialism. As a postcolonial work, it plays an unusually muted role (quite the contrast from, say Things Fall Apart). This choice is intentional — and it largely seeks to portray what he implies is an inevitable change.
I think this quote in the New York Times largely serves to give some extra insight into Gurnah’s storytelling here.
His childhood was first disrupted in 1964, when rebels overthrew Zanzibar’s largely Arab government. Gurnah was on a family holiday in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s largest city, on the day of the revolution, but watched the “pitiful sight” as Zanzibar’s fleeing sultan and former British officials arrived at its port. When he returned to Zanzibar, the family drove past “burned out houses, bullet holes in the walls,” and realized something terrible had happened. Gurnah didn’t see any violence himself, he said, “but you didn’t have to witness it, you constantly heard about it.”
There is constantly something, some colonialist violence, something substantially more sinister that is being hinted at. Perhaps the Germans razed a village the month before, perhaps they imposed their laws on the region from afar already. Their influence is pervasive but indirect, not quite there but always growing.
This is a genuinely good read; it reads almost like a sort of postcolonial work from much before the 90s. Gurnah really tries to layer so much into the novel — references to the Koran and perhaps more that I did not get the chance to understand.
There’s one standout moment in the novel I’d like to highlight — when Yusef is out in the mountains a little further inland from the coastal town Aziz first took him to. It’s a truly monumental piece of writing - ethereal and parallels the natural beauty of the location with the mythical Garden of Eden. This passage alone seals the book as one of Gurnah’s masterpieces. It’ll probably sit on my mind long after this review.
The three podcasts by Canonical on this book were pretty good supplemental listens. Would recommend listening after a read of the book.
4/5
Written 28 May 2023 Adapted from my review on Goodreads.