A good book doesn't need to be innovative. This was my first novel by Abdulrazak Gurnah and I was invested in the story from the start. It was a much easier and more conventional read than I expected from a Nobel laureate, but intriguing all the same.

The book is set in Tanzania in the 1990s, as three main characters come of age. Talented and worldly Karim, worrisome Fauzia who suffers from falling sickness and poor, modest Badar who gradually becomes the central figure of the story and the three lives start to converge. The background is one of growing tourism and development, impacting society, values and ultimately very directly the lives of the three protagonists.

Works well on audio too as the story is simple enough and slow-paced.

I finished this book more than a week ago, and since then, I've been struggling with writing this review. The problem is that this is a very bleak and dull novel that stirred no emotions in me at all. Apart from some disgust towards some traditions and practices (a teenage bride to a 40+ groom must be obedient while her husband does with her body whatever and whenever he wants, the wife must obey, must submit herself, that's her duty ---> puke, puke, puke!!!!!!).
The characters are deprived of sympathy, empathy, and love. They all seem to be paper-cut-out figures. The story itself keeps swinging from person to person on a loose thread.
What is interesting is the hypocrisy. One of the characters is complaining about foreigners coming to their country, and it doesn't matter who these people are: business people, volunteers from NGO organizations, or tourists. "They come here with their filth and their money and interfere with us (...). Everywhere you go, you see them, in the narrowest alley and street (...)." But somehow they don't think this about themselves while they travel to Europe. They express their dreams of migrating to Germany, Sweden, Denmark, UK. "(...) he was due in Copenhagen in November. Afterwards he would have been on EU salary, inflated and probably in golden euros (...)". So it's ok not to like Europeans, AND it's ok to move to Europe and be paid the money that they despise. Well, this certainly makes me to rethink the European immigration policy.
The second problem with this book is that it's written by a Nobel Prize recipient. I honestly expected a mind-blowing story, mind-blowing characters, and everything that makes literature. This is not it and I feel like a hyper idiot for not liking it and for not seeing the greatness in this book.

This was a slow read and quite meandering between different points of view and timelines. Interesting to read.

Set in Zanzibar and Dar Es Salaam, and starting off with the generation above them, we follow Karim, Fauzia and Badar, three young people in Tanzania with intertwined fates. First we encounter Karim and his mum Raya, who escapes from a violent marriage and brings her son back to her parents' small house. She's restless, though, and soon leaves him to his grandparents, settling away and setting up house with her second husband. Karim is supported by his older half-brother Ali and lives in thrall to him, then Badar arrives at Raya's house as a servant, he has no idea why or what he's to do at first, and doesn't know how he ended up there. So he enters the complex webs of debt and duty, especially when hs has to be "rescued" by Karim from Raya's father-in-law's accusations. Meanwhile, Fauzia is growing up a clever girl but with a mysterious illness, over-protected by her mum; she meets Karim and then Badar. So far, so good, set in a post-colonial 90s tourist boom, then in come two women, volunteer aid workers from the UK who disrupt things, dangling temptations in front of men who have almost nothing. What does this all do? Mainly, it appears to make Karim explode at Badar in a paroxysm of guilt and superiority which is a gasp-out loud moment.

With its relatively simple language and almost old-fashioned story, as well as the way it sets the detail of ordinary people's lives against the sweep of history and colonialism, it reminds me of Dangarembga or Emecheta (it's less simple than my beloved Narayan, but has something of the same webs of community). Details are thrown in: as the tourists come, so do the trinkets made in China to be sold as local handicrafts; hotels are upgraded and redone. And yes, there are two accusations of theft, but also the theft of authenticity and agency, perhaps.

I absolutely loved this book, other readers here, particularly those who have read others of his books a little less so, so I'll see what I think when I read more. I also enjoyed learning more about Tanzania, as I don't think I've read a book set there before.

Reviewed on my blog 29 March https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2025/03/29/book-review-abdulrazak-gurnah-theft/

This is a subtle and quietly brilliant tour de force of storytelling, exploring the post-colonial histories of Zanzibar and Tanzania (in the shape of capital Dar-Es Salaam) through the lives of three interconnected young people coming of age in the nineties.

Karim is abandoned by his mother, and under the encouragement of his elder brother throws himself into school work and travels to Dar-Es Salaam to attend university, the very city his mother has moved to. Badar, another quasi-orphan, is placed by his father with Karim’s mother as a house servant to settle a family obligation. Fauzia, a teen whose early childhood is blighted by epilepsy, moves into Karim’s orbit as a girlfriend while a student. We follow these characters in turn as they move ever closer to each other, with a fine cast of supporting characters drawn from the village (one shopkeeper with an enormous belly is particularly memorable) and the new tourist economy.

Gurnah’s plot sets the old social bonds of family, of the countryside, and against a new urban way of living embodied in different ways by all three. These tensions drive these young people together (through debts they impose on each other), and ultimately apart through a new form of colonialism, the western development NGO. Theft is never didactic, Gurnah is so in control of his material that everything springs from the characters motivations and interactions. If he takes time over the first half of the novel in establishing the characters lives, it is to enmesh them in a set of narrative turns in the second half that lead to an ending that is by turns tragic, blackly comic and ultimately hopeful.

A moving and thought provoking story about the intertwined lives of our three main characters and the way choice vs circumstance impacts their lives. It was both heart breaking and satisfying to follow these characters' families from before they were born all the way into adulthood. An enjoyable read but it remains to be seen how long it stays with me.

This is not a critique, analysis or essay but quick, overview intended to give you some idea whether or not you might enjoy an author’s work.

NO SPOILERS

Abdulrazak Gurnah won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2021; Theft is the first time I have read his work.

Also a first for me is I don’t know what to say about it. I didn’t dislike this book, I didn’t absolutely love this book. I did enjoy it and the insights into a country and culture different from mine – I always do. But I can’t put my finger on what is missing for me.

The storytelling is gentle and the writing is deceptively simple, and that is a skill in itself. Yet I cannot rave about it. Perhaps I read it a time when my thoughts were really elsewhere (America is falling apart, from the inside, and the world is a very uncertain place) so a second reading at a more settled time might be good.

An entertaining book, based in the former country of Zanzibar, which is now a semi-autonomous region of Tanzania.
It is primarily about two distantly related boys coming-of-age, and their trials in difficult times, how relatives helped them over the worst and set them on the right path.
Of course there are numerous other characters, that all-in-all make for a generally pleasant tale of life in East Africa.
I liked most of the characters, and the principal storyline.
No shocks, no horrors.
I like the story.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Theft" by Abdulrazak Gurnah is his first book after winning the Nobel Prize in 2021. A native of Zanzibar and Tansania, his new book is set in Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar in the 1990. His gentle, incomparable voice tells the story of  the interwoven lives of Karim, self -assured and born into a wealthy household, beautiful, intelligent and gentle Fauzia and subservient Badar, who is less lucky in life, a servant in Karim's parents household but also a relative.

The narrative follows them thru coming of age until they settle  on Zanzibar as now adults, still friends despite their very different backgrounds. Gurnah's writing is beautiful, atmospheric when it comes to describing the living conditions in post colonial Africa.  I particularly fell in love with Badar as a character, his innocence yet down- to-earth attitude. A gem of a book,  just what you would expect from the maestro.

This was my first time reading an Abdulrazak Gurnah book, and I was very unsure of what to expect. With its lyrical yet everyday prose and consistent character focus I can very much see why he has garnered so many fans. But that being said, the abiding feeling I was left with was one of ambivalence. I found it incredibly difficult to really intrude upon the narrative, the characters well written but opaque. Trying another of this books may be in order to really get a sense of where I stand with this author, but for now, Theft was decidedly undecipherable.

Well written novel set in postcolonial Zanzibar, following the intersecting paths of three flawed characters. We watch the characters grow, and make interesting choices that nonetheless draw us closer to them.

It sometimes feels like Abdulrazak Gurnah is one of the less hyped up recent Nobel Prize winners in the wider bookish community. His win did not get the same level of excitement as that of Han Kang, for example. It is a shame, as his work is excellent at capturing the often lost life of the Swahili Coast, Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam. I have only read Afterlives before this one, and adored the storytelling inherent to Gurnah's writing style. Light on dialogue, playing fast and loose with time (weeks or months could pass between paragraphs or even between sentences), his writing has an almost mythical quality to it. He paints in quite broad strokes to create a sense of a place, a time and a people, but at his best he also masterfully captures the people he writes about.

Theft displays some of the best qualities of his writing. It provides a panoramic view of postcolonial Zanzibar (and glimpses of Dar es Salaam). The sights, smells and tactility of the places Gurnah visits are vividly recreated. The sense of time was a little bit distorted for me, as it seemed like around 20 years got lost in the narrative (the beginning read like the early 1960s, but the child born at the beginning of the story is then still of university age in the late 1990s). There was also very little specificity of postcolonial Tanzanian politics, little sense of any conflict around forging a national identity, which might have been a part of the point Gurnah is making. The ARC I have had some undeleted edits in it, which indicated that he really tried to create as timeless a story as possible (for example, replacing 'Googled' with 'looked up' when talking about the characters' interactions with the internet in the 2000/2010s) to try to avoid anything too specific. The interactions between the characters highlight the social structure and stratification of the merchant society at the heart of the narrative, creating some beautifully subtle moments.

Unfortunately, some of the things that don't quite work in such panoramic storytelling were also evident in the text. The pacing did not quite work for me. The first two thirds of the novel set up the interpersonal conflicts of the last third. As a result, the setup feels too long and the conflict and its resolution too rushed. The subtlety of the characters emotions and feelings about each other descends into quite a banal and two-dimensional discord. What was the development of Karim's character about? Was Gurnah trying to say that most men are in fact, disappointing? We sort of know that already.

A major theme in the last quarter of the novel is voyeurism, tourism and the hypocrisy of the international development industrial complex. Whilst I completely agree with the ideas expressed here, the exploration presented by Gurnah felt derivative and unoriginal, as if he is jumping on the bandwagon, rather than leading the conversation. The works of Imbolo Mbue (How Beautiful We Were), Tsitsi Dangarembga (This Mournable Body) and Monique Ilboudo (So Distant From My Life), among many others, explored these issues in much more detail and nuance, whilst also showcasing more innovative prose and narrative structure.

This novel felt quite old-fashioned, both in a good and in a bad way. If you want a captivating, almost lulling, broad strokes story which would transport you to a different land, definitely check it out.

’ve not read any of this author’s previous books they are the winner of the 2021 Nobel prize for literature this is what Dream me to the novel when it appeared on that galley UK
This book tells the story of two young boys growing up in Tanzania
Initially, I spent quite long time trying to work out when the book is set there are washing machines and tvs but big old radios eventually there was some mention of historical events suggesting the book is set in the late 90s. I have to admit, I did find this a bit distracting.
The story tells about three young men of different statuses growing up in Zanzibar Tanzania
The lives are intertwined and that one young man works as a servant in the house of another and as we read we watch them take their first steps through adulthood and learn about how in fact their lives are more closely linked than any of them know
The author has a beautiful flowing lyrical writing style. The novel is an easy relaxing read
I felt that the authors particular strength was describing characters closely so that you feel that you know them and understand what motivates them clearly.
The setting in Tanzania in relatively modern times makes for interesting reading I knew very little about the country and was glad to learn more . The interactions of the three young man whilst clearly having a lot of similarities for young men growing up anywhere there were some specific elements to their relationships which were clearly grounded in Africa
I’d recommend this novel for those who like primarily character driven and lead stories the African setting lead another element which was very important to the story.
I read an early copy of the novel on NetGalley UK in return for a review. The book is published in the UK on the 18th of March 2025 by Bloomsbury publishing plc.
This review will appear on StoryGraph, Goodreads, and my book blog bionicSarahsbooks.wordpress.com after publication it will also appear on Amazon UK

"Much of what was expected of him at school was tedious, it seemed to him, but he exerted himself to the extent necessary to maintain self-respect and not be thought stupid. There was also sports. He was athletic in a dogged way, a quality which made him a competitor, not a winner, and which got him on to the school football team, where he was rated a tough, disciplined defender."

This is Abdulrazak Gurnah's first novel since he surprisingly won the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2021, awarded “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.” This novel feels, for large parts, something of a departure from that theme into the realms of conventional family saga, with a rather tangled plot explained in other reviews here.

I previously have read his novel Paradise which was Booker shortlisted in 1994, the year (from the Independent) the marketing director of the influential Dillons bookshops, said: 'It's a boring, Mogadon list. We've been active in promoting the shortlist in the past, but this year we feel it doesn't warrant special attention', and my review of Paradise concluded "dull but well-written at the sentence level and worthy is perhaps the best description for this one".

Theft was perhaps a more interesting read, but less 'worthy' - not one I suspect the Nobel Committee would have featured in their biobibliography had it been available - and at times feels rather padded with unnecessary detail. For example when one character moves into a rented room we get this (and it continues for another paragraph).

"The room that Karim found for Badar was in a house which at some earlier time had been occupied by a merchant and his extended family. The merchant had long since passed away and his family had scattered, who knows where, except for one son who worked in a furniture warehouse in Dar es Salaam and was keen to sell. The house now belonged to a man called Hakim who had been working for many years in Abu Dhabi, in a transport business delivering goods to shops and groceries all over the United Arab Emirates. His wife and children had remained behind in Zanzibar, living with his parents in a small flat in Miembeni. Hakim had come to visit them whenever he could. After some years, he was able to buy a small share in the transport business. There was already another part-owner, a Somali man from Bukoba, whose name was Abdirahman, who like Hakim had also started out working in a humble position and by diligence and trust-worthiness had acquired a share in the business. The main owner, the money bags of the enterprise, was an Abu Dhabi man who only concerned himself from a distance but kept a close eye on the paperwork and knew how to reward his partners."

None of the characters ever appear again and this is irrelevant to what came before or after.

The novel only really hits its stride in the closing pages when a young woman from a NGO, after an overseas-posting fling, disrupts the family dynamics, and as one character calls out:

"What do these people want with us? Why do they come here? They come here with their filth and their money and interfere with us and ruin our lives for their pleasure, and it seems that we cannot resist their wealth and their filthy ways. What do they want with us? Everywhere you go you see them, in the narrowest alley and street, there they are, looking into people’s houses and down people’s throats, and alongside them will be one of our shameless young men, grinning like a monkey while he does his blather. Don’t they have seas and beaches in their own countries?
[...]
They sat in a deflated silence for a few moments, then Fauzia said, She is not a tourist. She is a volunteer.
What’s the difference? Khadija said sneeringly. Volunteer! You see them in their big new cars, bringing us their goodwill. They should stay in their own country and do their goodwill there."

2.5 stars rounded to 3.

Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.

The first novel by the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature winner since his award (the 11th novel overall in his career to date) and due to be published in 2025.

Gurnah’s writing – I have read and reviewed in detail all his novels to date - has in my view two main strands.
One of them is his five exile novels (“Pilgrims Way”, ”Admiring Silence”, “By The Sea”, “Last Gift”, “Gravel Heart” – all of which feature male characters from Zanzibar exiled (for different reasons) in the UK and finding themselves no longer really belonging to either country. Many of the themes are also recurrent (storytelling, the English language canon, the after effect of colonialism on colonisers and colonised, relationships with Fathers, family secrets) and at times I feel like the novels are rewrites of the same stories. “Dottie” his third novel while set in England was more of a one-off.

The second series is his African-set novels: “Paradise”, “Desertion”, “Afterlives” which are set in East Africa during the colonial era itself and which explore that era. (His rather weak debut “Memory of Departure” was set immediately post independence in an unnamed country).

This novel adds a new strand to his oeuvre – his first really set in modern Tanzania (both the Island of Zanzibar and the mainland) and his first therefore truly post Colonial novel.

It is in essence a relatively conventional character led drama with three main protagonists and we meet each separately in Part 1 of the novel.

The first – Karim – we first meet via his mother Raya on the archipelago island of Pemba: forced by family panic into an arranged marriage with a much older man (Bakari Abbas), due to her flirtations with a Cuban trained member of the militia wing of the Umma party (a socialist Arabic post-independence party), she eventually leaves her abusive husband for her parents household who eventually become his de facto guardians (his mother distant). When Raya moves to the mainland capital of Dar es Salaam following a second marriage to a pharmacist Haji, Karim – now 15 and increasingly successful at school - goes to live with his stepbrother (by his estranged and now dead father) Ali, a customs official. Later Karim is recontacted by his mother and forms a close bond with her and her husband (although a more distant one with Haji’s widowed and rather bitter father) – particularly when he starts University in the capital.

We then meet Badar, starting when at 13 his adopted family (who have always treated him as something of an imposter) leave him with Raya and Haji in what he quickly realises is a domestic servant position – treated kindly by Haji in particular (and by Karim when he visits) but openly resented by Haji’s father.

Finally its Fauzia – suffering from sleeping sickness as a child which makes her mother unduly anxious over her, she too does well at secondary school although her ambitions are to teach and she takes a place at a teaching college rather than at University

In Part II of the novel the characters’ paths firmly converge.

First during University vacations (when Karim returns to Zanzibar) he and Fauzia are mutually attracted and with the agreement of their families are married. Then when Haji’s now ailing father makes a move he has long been planning to get Badar out of his house (at which point it becomes clear that Badar’s past is tangled up with family scandal and his presence in Haji’s house not a coincidence) Karim offers Badar the chance to make a fresh start in Zanzibar, initially living in the small house with he and Fauzia.

Part III is for me the strongest of the novel as, after what seems a lengthy set up (of around 60% of the novel) we get to its real meet – both in terms of character dynamics and in setting (Zanzibar now as very much a destination for tourists, people from governments supportive to the Tanzanian state and some Western NGOs.

Karim finds Badar a job as a hotel worker in a small City-based boutique hotel – he gradually working himself up to greater positions of responsibility in the hotel and the wider hotel enterprise of which it is part. Fauzia – for all her anxiety about the risk of passing on sleeping sickness – eventually becomes pregnant. Karim meanwhile is growing in success as a Civil Servant – including the possibility of a European posting as part of a sustainable green development scheme.

But tensions grow between them – not helped by and of: Fauzia and Karim’s baby being a terrible sleeper; Karim’s vaulting ambition; his rather condescending attitude to Badar; his patriarchal disinterest if not positive hostility to his wife’s domestic struggles; and then a sexually predatory young British woman who stays at Badar’s hotel and seems set on a local conquest.

Badar is for me a pretty classic Gurnah male protagonist – rather passive if not servile (something Karim points out with relish when Badar does try to chide him over his behaviour as a father and husband) – and his response when (almost at the book’s climax) Karim angrily asks him what he has ever learnt in his “useless “life is to silently think “I have learned to endure”.

Another interesting aspect for me is that although there is no real exile in this novel – Badar does dream of moving to London and explores its streets, not in practice but via Street View at one point even noting a man there who he can see “was one of his people, perhaps a native of that street, or perhaps a stranger” and we can almost imagine that person as perhaps the subject of Gurnah’s next novel (perhaps set in London but with an economic refugee or even voluntary immigrant rather than involuntary political exile).

Overall, I do not think this is the ideal place to start with Gurnah’s work as other than its setting it can seem very conventional – but for those fans of his work it’s a fascinating new direction.

Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Theft is an exquisite exploration of lives intertwined at the turn of the twenty-first century in Tanzania. Through the experiences of three young people—Karim, Fauzia, and Badar—the book gently probes questions of ambition, identity, and the weight of choices in a world undergoing quiet yet seismic change.

Karim returns to his hometown after university, brimming with confidence and aspirations. Fauzia, yearning to escape the constraints of her stifling upbringing, sees Karim as a possible route to freedom. Meanwhile, Badar, struggling with his poverty and uncertain about what the future holds, finds solace and shelter with the pair. Against a backdrop of creeping modernity as tourism, technology, and new opportunities mingled with risks, the trio must navigate the shifting tides of their relationships and their own aspirations.

What makes Theft truly remarkable is Gurnah’s masterful control over language. His prose is both soothing and satisfying, with every sentence carrying a sense of purpose and precision. The delicate power dynamics between the characters are rendered with such subtlety and depth that the emotional shifts feel as natural as breathing.

This is a book that doesn’t merely tell a story; it immerses the reader in the nuanced realities of its characters’ lives. Gurnah’s ability to depict these moments with tenderness and insight solidifies his place as a master of his craft. Theft is a deeply rewarding read, offering a profound meditation on what it means to seize control of one’s fate in a rapidly changing world.

I loved every moment of it and would highly recommend it to those who appreciate literary fiction at its finest.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

We follow three curious characters over the course of different years.
This is a quick and enjoyable read. I fell in love with Gurnah’s writing. Does not pretend to be anything else than it is supposed to.
Also, as a culturally important book, it strikes a good balance between relevant themes, characters and various identities.
Badar was a particularly good addition to the fictional universes.

Theft is the latest novel from the Nobel Laureate, Abdulrazak Gurnah, and his first since he was awarded the Nobel. Therefore expectations are high for this, perhaps too high for me, as following his award I read his back catalogue and fell in love with his writing. Theft contains much of what made his previous works sing - the writing is again exquisite, and his sense of characterisation is spot on. There is much to admire here. Unfortunately that is mostly what I was left with - admiration, but no true sense of having been gripped. I really wanted to love this novel, and it is a very fine novel indeed. Perhaps if it had been a debut or a second novel I may have been less critical and damning whilst reading it and much more positive, but because it is Gurnah and a Nobel Laureate, I have judged more harshly.

If you have loved Gurnah's other novels then you will find things to love here too. If it's your first Gurnah, perhaps start with Paradise or After Lives, but do come to this one as well, because despite the weight of expectations upon it, Theft does stand a chance of stealing your heart too.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC.

A story told through many of years, following love, hardship and betrayal. We get a close insight into the lives of the characters, watching them grow and become the adults they end up as.

We view their life decisions as the play out, searching within ourselves on what each decision means to ourselves. Each character is vividly brought to life, the most charming of all is Badar. The challenges he faces, makes you sympathetic and root for him from the start.

Gurnah’s story is very much enjoyable, highlighting worldwide themes, in this small space. From the daily life in East Africa, the countries relationship with others, and the compassion we should all share.

3.5/5 stars. I did enjoy, however there felt something missing. The story didn’t pull me in as much as I had hoped.

Thank you netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.