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Bianca Palese, 134 TESS
Gravel Heart is a 2017 novel written by Abdulrazak Gurnah, winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature. Gurnah was born in the Sultanate of Zanzibar, now a part of Tanzania, and moved to England in the 1960s as a refugee of the Zanzibar Revolution. He is currently an Emeritus Professor of English and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Kent. Gravel Heart is his ninth published novel.
Gravel Heart follows the life of a boy, Salim, in post-revolutionary Zanzibar as he grows up on the ever-changing island and then moves to England at 18. Salim’s life is shrouded in mystery from a young age when his father unexpectedly leaves him and his mother and no one is willing to provide Salim with an explanation as to why. The only other family Salim has is his Uncle Amir, whom he grows up adoring. Uncle Amir secures a comfortable position in the relatively new government as a diplomat stationed in London. When Salim graduates high school, Uncle Amir offers to bring Salim to live with him and his family in London and attend business school so he can become a rich man as well. But things do not go as planned, and as Salim unravels parts of the family secret he is disowned by Uncle Amir and left to fend for himself in London. It isn’t until many years later when Salim’s mother dies that he will return to Zanzibar and learn the full truth of his family’s trauma.
I am a devout lover of sad books, and Gravel Heart delivered in a way unlike anything else I’ve ever read. From the very first line: “My father did not want me,” I knew I had something special in my hands. It’s a slow burn, not seeming to have any direction at times, just like its main character. As a reader I could feel Salim’s anguish, shame, and loneliness even as he performed the most mundane of tasks, and found myself tearing up just because I pitied him. One technique that Gurnah masterfully utilizes is inserting the letters that Salim writes, but doesn’t always send, to his mother. The way the excerpts unravel from neutral little vignettes about life in London to confessions of guilt, hatred, and anger is jarring. Gurnah notes when Salim rips out that page and starts again, showing us the tepid, polite letters Salim would actually send instead of confessing how he truly felt. I was always left wishing Salim would send the angsty, accusatory letters. He never musters up the courage to confront the villains in his life. I think it’s especially hard because as he grows up he realizes that all the ‘good guys’ in his life are bad and all the ‘bad guys’ are actually good. And the sting of this betrayal is too much to acknowledge, except in letters never to be sent.
It is no mystery by any account as to why Abdulrazak Gurnah is a Nobel Prize winner. Gravel Heart is a masterpiece. He writes characters with such depth and precision, yet avoids all cliches. The story is perfect in the way it starts with Salim wondering why his father left him and ends with his father revealing to him, once and for all, the family secrets. I wasn’t surprised by the big reveal because all the clues along the way were pointing in that direction. But I was still stunned by what I knew all along: Salim wasn’t truly loved by anyone. His father only loved his mother, his mother only loved her brother Amir, and Amir only loved himself. Salim was a casualty in a dysfunctional family harmed by the effects of colonialism. The biggest “Omg” moment for me was when Salim compares his family’s drama to Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, and I realized that this whole time I was reading a modern retelling of a Shakespearean classic. The difference is the ending because, as Salim tells his father, “There was no role for you in the play.” While Measure for Measure has a happy ending, Salim’s father does not get one and he submits to exile instead. It couldn’t have been more brilliant. Gurnah couldn’t have written a better ending.
If you have a taste for the bittersweet you should read this book or any other book by Abdulrazak Gurnah. I really enjoyed Gravel Heart and look forward to reading more work from this author.
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