Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah: Is It For You?

Posted On October 28, 2023

Hi Readers! I recently read a book that I have been wanting to read since a long time. I bought it when Abdulrazak Gurnah won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021. I looked up his other books such as Paradise, Gravel Heart and By the Sea, but Afterlives gripped my attention the most when I read its blurb. So, by the virtue of being a mood reader, I picked it up and finally read it. Read more to know if you will like it.

~~GOODREADS DESCRIPTION~~

While he was still a little boy, Ilyas was stolen from his parents by the German colonial troops. After years away, fighting in a war against his own people, he returns to his village to find his parents gone, and his sister Afiya given away.

Another young man returns at the same time. Hamza was not stolen for the war, but sold into it; he has grown up at the right hand of an officer whose protection has marked him life. With nothing but the clothes on his back, he seeks only work and security – and the love of the beautiful Afiya.

As fate knots these young people together, as they live and work and fall in love, the shadow of a new war on another continent lengthens and darkens, ready to snatch them up and carry them away…

~~THOUGHTS~~

Afterlives is the story of two African men and their lives impacted by the war. There’s Khalifa, who had a plain life. Job as a clerk, a wife and a small house. Then there’s Hamza, who saw all the ugliness in a war, came out of it and still managed to live a plain life. From being a night watchman to managing the entire warehouse, a wife and a child. So, what’s so interesting about the book, you ask? Well, it’s in the writing, and also not in the writing. When it flows on the page, you will literally not want to be separated from the book, but when it doesn’t, you won’t be able to read more than two pages.

With four parts, the writing keeps changing in each one. Part One is only a few pages where Khalifa’s story is established. Part Two where we meet Hamza is the longest section, with which I had a lot of problems with because of unstructured writing. As someone who loves historical fiction, I haven’t read any novels set in Africa. While Part 2 had all of that, the events of the war were never very clear. I struggled a lot with this part and almost DNFed the book. But, after powering through, Part Three had a simpler writing where the paths of Khalifa and Hamza entwine. This part did not have any war-related references and could have been a story in itself, albeit a very straightforward one. And, then Part Four was super rushed with Hamza’s son trying to find out more about his uncle who was lost in the war. To summarize, Part 1 was brief, Part 2 was disconnected, Part 3 was well written and Part 4 was rushed, which made the overall book just average.

As for the actual title of the book, the whole point of Afterlives was not well established either. We only saw Hamza living his life with a hip injury. There were no emotional plot points about PTSD. There were no flashbacks or nightmares of the tragic events Hamza lived through. There was no mention of how it was to support a country that lost the war and the prejudice and harassment that came along with it. And, as for the life of the family after Ilyas goes to war was also hazy. A few mentions written randomly but with no real impact of how it feels when a close family member has disappeared for years after a war. And even if we are to talk about the positive aspect of the afterlives of war in the aspect of finding love, then that love story between Hamza and Afiya wasn’t really explored much either.

I felt that the book had a lot of promise and good writing to support it. But, the ambiguity in the prose made it a weaker book. Yes, the war has already happened decades ago and we can read about it online. But, that doesn’t mean readers should have to read lazy writing for the better part of the book. So, the irony is that where the plot was structured, the writing was flawless, but where the story lacked substance, the writing failed too. It’s perhaps a fine line to write through, and yet so very exhilarating to get right.

~~TO READ OR NOT TO READ~~

I think that Abdulrazak Gurnah’s writing is not for everyone. You really need to have an open mind to absorb the story no matter how it flows. So, if you like to read a proper structure in your novels, then you should not read it. If you love historical fiction with a lot of subtexts, then you should not read this book, because there is very little historical information. If you want to read something different than what you usually read, then you can definitely give it a try and read this one. If you want to understand how you can love and hate an author’s writing in the same book, then you should read this book. I have rated Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah at 3.5/5 stars!

Until next time,