By The Sea

Abdulrazak Gurnah’s story of love and betrayal, of seduction and possession, and of people desperately trying to find stability amidst the maelstrom. "One scarcely dares breathe while reading it for fear of breaking the enchantment"  (The Times).

Saleh Omar arrives at Gatwick Airport from Zanzibar, a faraway island in the Indian Ocean. With him, he has a small bag in which there lies his most precious possession - a mahogany box containing incense. He used to own a furniture shop, have a house and be a husband and father. Now he is an asylum seeker from paradise; silence his only protection. Meanwhile, Latif Mahmud lives quietly alone in his London flat. When Saleh and Latif meet in an English seaside town, a story is unravelled.

"Rarely in a lifetime can you open a book and find that reading it encapsulates the enchanting qualities of a love affair... By the Sea turns misery, degradation and loss into prose of elegant and affecting humanity."   -  The Times

Abdulrazak Gurnah is the author of nine novels. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in October 2021. He is an Emeritus Professor of English and Postcolonial Literature at the University of Kent and was a Booker Prize judge in 2016. His novels include Memory of Departure, Pilgrims Way, Dottie, Paradise (shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Award), Admiring Silence, By the Sea (shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Award), Desertion (shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize), The Last Gift and Gravel Heart.