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Admiring Silence  By  cover art

Admiring Silence

By: Abdulrazak Gurnah
Narrated by: Damian Lynch
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Publisher's summary

By the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature

'There is a wonderful sardonic eloquence to this unnamed narrator's voice' Financial Times

'I don't think I've ever read a novel that is so convincingly and hauntingly sad about the loss of home' Independent on Sunday
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He thinks, as he escapes from Zanzibar, that he will probably never return, and yet the dream of studying in England matters above that.

Things do not happen quite as he imagined – 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.

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.

©1996 Abdulrazak Gurnah (P)2022 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

What listeners say about Admiring Silence

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WOW. Fantastic book; perfect narrator

I have both the paper book as well as the audiobook. This is one of the few times that an already incredible novel is, somehow, made even better through audio. You could hear the sly sparkle or sarcasm in the narrator's voice. The novel itself is fantastic. It literally made me laugh out loud at some points and choke back sadness at others.

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Enthralling

I have always felt that words could never fully express the chaos, pain and joys of lived experience. But in this book they do. A remarkable book.

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