Gravel Heart

By: Abdulrazak Gurnah

Narrated by: Damian Lynch

Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

Bloomsbury presents Gravel Heart by Abdulrazak Gurnah, read by Damian Lynch.

From the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature, a powerful story of exile, migration and betrayal.

Salim has always known that his father does not want him. Living with his parents and his adored Uncle Amir in a house full of secrets, he is a bookish child, a dreamer haunted by night terrors. It is the 1970s and Zanzibar is changing. Tourists arrive, the island’s white sands obscuring the memory of recent conflict—the longed-for independence from British colonialism swiftly followed by bloody revolution. When his father moves out, retreating into dishevelled introspection, Salim is confused and ashamed. His mother does not discuss the change, nor does she explain her absences with a strange man; silence is layered on silence.

When glamorous Uncle Amir, now a senior diplomat, offers Salim an escape, the lonely teenager travels to London for college. But nothing has prepared him for the biting cold and seething crowds of this hostile city. Struggling to find a foothold, and to understand the darkness at the heart of his family, he must face devastating truths about those closest to him—and about love, sex and power. Evoking the immigrant experience with unsentimental precision and profound understanding, Gravel Heart is a powerfully affecting story of isolation, identity, belonging and betrayal, and Abdulrazak Gurnah's most astonishing achievement.

©2017 Abdulrazak Gurnah ‘Ramblin’ Rose’ Words and Music by Joe Sherman and Noel Sherman © 1962. Reproduced by permission of Erasmus Music Inc / Sony / ATV Tunes LLC,London W1F 9LD. (P)2022 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Critic reviews

"The measured elegance of Gurnah's prose renders his protagonist in a manner almost uncannily real.... Gurnah's portrayal of student immigrant life in Britain is pleasingly deliberate and precise, and also riveting.... Even the minor characters in this novel have richly imagined histories that inflect their smallest interactions—one of the loveliest pleasures of this book, and a choice that makes its world exceptionally full." (New York Times Book Review)

"What sets Gravel Heart apart from the many other books on the immigrant experience are Gurnah's deeper themes.... Gravel Heart is much more than the story of a boy trying to uncover his family's secret. Ultimately, it's a story about trying find one's place in the world—and that's something we can all to relate to." (Washington Independent Review of Books)

Don’t tire

Stay with this beautifully written story . Leave it aside if you must but return to its exquisite layers of compassion and insights . Bravo

So enjoyed this!

This transported me, delighted and inspired me. It was beautifully performed and makes me want to go read more of this author’s work. Asante!