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Review: Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah

'We can endure any truth, however destructive, provided it replaces everything, provided it affords as much vitality as the hope for which it substitutes,' writes the Romanian philosopher EM Cioran in his classic The Trouble with Being Born. This quote characterises the Tanzanian-British novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah's latest novel, Theft – his first since winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2021. A testament to Gurnah's dedication to telling the stories of 'little people who somehow overcome things', it is divided into three parts. The first offers a slow reveal of characters and historical contexts. Perhaps this is Gurnah's nod to Tolstoy, whose short story Polikushka is invoked in a conversation in this novel. Here, readers learn what led to the marriage of 17-year-old Raya to Bakari Abbas, a divorcee in his forties. Raya was in love with Rafik, who had joined the Umma Party to free Zanzibar, then a British protectorate. But her father disapproved of Rafik, and foreseeing humiliation, gets his daughter married to Abbas. The rationale behind his rushed decision is explored only briefly but it establishes how, besides patriarchy, colonialism and communism too played a role in it. Raya and Abbas' marriage turns out to be a disaster. Powerless, she notes feeling Abbas' 'overbearing flesh upon her unresisting body'. This reflection on bedroom politics crucially underlines how some men believe it is their right to take what they desire. It was not so much Abbas' abusive nature but the 'charming' personality that he projected to others that disturbed Raya and made her wonder if anyone would believe her if she confided in them. With nothing to do, she internalises shame. She eventually summons up the courage to leave Abbas behind and returns to her parents' home with their three-year-old son, Karim. To avoid being her father's 'skivvy', she begins working at a clothing store but, in the process, fails to raise Karim with motherly affection. This loss — or theft? — of sorts, is one of the reasons why Karim turns out to be a careless father. Gurnah writes: 'Karim at times wondered why parents like his, who were neglecting and unloving, bothered to have children… He would do things differently when he became a father, that was certain.' When Raya remarries and moves to her husband Haji Othman's house in Dar es Salaam, Karim finds shelter in the home of his stepbrother Ali and his wife Jalila. Abbas' son from a previous marriage is a proxy father to Karim. These patterns of a newly-wed couple providing shelter to a forlorn man and of men looking for someone to fill the father-shaped void within themselves are repeated in the novel's climatic third part where Karim and his wife Fauzia open their doors for Badar. This circularity is perhaps what interests Gurnah the most, and is reflected in how Theft's principal character Badar Ismail's life pans out. When Badar was first brought to Haji's, he couldn't guess that he was to be their boy servant. While he missed his father, who was not actually his father, he accepts his fate as he finds nothing to complain about at Haji's. Except for Haji's father, Uncle Othman, everyone was nice to him. Juma, the old gardener, is good company and offers wisdom after the daily chores are done. Occasionally, Badar pleasures himself thinking of Raya 'when she had just risen from her afternoon rest and was dressed in a loose thin gown which sat well on her and clung a little to parts of her body as she moved'. READ MORE: Abdulrazak Gurnah: 'Silence can also be vocal' The sociopolitical history of Zanzibar and their own personal histories add layers of complexity to Gurnah's characters and their actions. This is particularly evident in the scene when Haji tries to appear candid by having a conversation full of rather 'touchy' questions with Badar. The latter is aware that Haji possesses the power to influence his future – something which eventually does happen when he is suspected of theft. Gurnah writes, 'Once again Badar found that the direction of his life had changed without any effort on his part.' And that's how Badar finds himself living with Karim and Fauzia before moving to his own space after having worked several months at the Tamarind Hotel, which features in the third part of the novel. The action and the anticipation in this section gives it a distinct energy and narrative tension. The goings-on at the hotel reveal the boundaries — kept and blurred — between people in the hospitality industry and their clients, corruption in the tourism industry, and the nexus between influential politicians and hoteliers like Bwana Sharif in a late-capitalist world. Theft makes readers think about how decisions are made and who eventually benefits from them. In reality, rewards don't distribute themselves but are purely dependent on the power their possible benefactors can wield. This novel is similar to Gurnah's earlier work in that it focuses on the mundane to reflect on a universal condition. It explores interactions between people, and presents the circuitous route that life often takes. Saurabh Sharma is a Delhi-based writer and freelance journalist. They can be found on Instagram/X: @writerly_life.