Admiring Silence
Abdulrazak Gurnah
<p><b>Masterfully blending myth and reality, this is the story of a man's escape from his native Zanzibar to England to build a new life. A dazzling tale of cultural identity and displacement</b><br/><br/>He thinks, as he escapes from Zanzibar, that he will probably never return, and yet the dream of studying in England matters above that.<br/><br/>Things do not happen quite as he imagined &#8211; the school where he teaches is cramped and violent, he forgets how it feels to belong. But there is Emma, beautiful, rebellious Emma, who turns away from her white, middle-class roots to offer him love and bear him a child. And in return he spins stories of his home and keeps her a secret from his family. <br/><br/>Twenty years later, when the barriers at last come down in Zanzibar, he is able and compelled to go back. What he discovers there, in a story potent with truth, will change the entire vision of his life.</p>