I became interested in Afterlives when I heard an interview with Abdulrazak Gurnah on NPR around the time he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. I don't remember the details, but the interview left me with the impression that the story would offer a somewhat hopeful vision of characters rebuilding their lives after colonial wars in Tanzania.
Afterlives is a much lighter and less ambitious book than I expected given the weighty subject matter and the Nobel Prize. Gurnah describes the brutality and subjugation of the war in a matter-of-fact tone, without melodrama and with an even-handed acknowledgement of the impact on the German characters. The love story between Hamza (injured in the war) and Afiya (whose brother is missing) is sweet. Their lives are shaped by the competition between European colonial powers but personal trauma is not a defining trait of their characters. The story develops organically without any distortions introduced to promote the author's themes.
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