DESERTION

262pp., paperback, London, 2005

Abdulrazak Gurnah is the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021.

A novel set in a small coastal town in Kenya in the early 20th century. A love affair unfolds between an Englishman and a young Muslim woman.

"This is an impressive and deeply serious book, a careful and heartfelt exploration of the way memory inevitably consoles and disappoints us" Sunday Times 

"As beautifully written and pleasurable as anything I've read ... Gurnah's portrait is the work of a maestro" Guardian

Abdulrazak Gurnah is the author of nine novels, including Paradise (shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Award), By the Sea (longlisted for the Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Award) and Afterlives. He was Professor of English at the University of Kent. He lives in Canterbury.