Theft

The new novel from the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature - 'a maestro' ( Guardian ). A captivating story of the intertwined lives of three young people coming-of-age in postcolonial East Africa

Nothing about human behaviour surprises Gurnah, and in reading his wise new novel with its gentle and beautiful ending, we the readers become a bit less judgemental, and more ready to understand what it means to struggle, to dare, to love – what it means to be human

A rich, engaging experience … Beautifully done … The reader can only rejoice at Gurnah’s skill in giving us the whole of a life in such nimble scenes

Nobody writes about the world we call postcolonial like Abdulrazak Gurnah. His novels are uncompromising, but also stubbornly humane. They come at their subjects with open eyes, and we need what they see

Another glittering tapestry of a novel from a master storyteller of our times

A storyteller of understated brilliance … A poignant portrait of love, friendship and betrayal … Powerful, affecting and provocative, Theft is a vital addition to Gurnah’s remarkable body of work, a novel steeped in heartbreak and loss but one that ultimately refuses despair

In typically poised, elegant and unshowy prose … Gurnah is a sharp, stealthy observer himself. There’s a steely alertness to his gaze that makes the shady courtyards and sweaty rooms of Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar - and the feelings of their people - solid and luminous. He lays bare this confined space with crafty, slow-burn patience

A tightly focused, beautifully controlled examination of friendship and betrayal

The intricate narrative skilfully reflects the complexities of a post-colonial world in which there are fewer and fewer certainties

A quietly powerful demonstration of storytelling mastery, at once coming-of-age chamber piece and wide-angled post-colonial panorama … narrated in a quicksilver style that gives you the pleasurable sense that you’re putty in the hands of a warm yet clear-eyed authorial intelligence … The conclusion – crackling with jeopardy, ultimately cathartic – moves all Theft ’s patiently assembled plotlines into place for a riveting denouement

A tightly focused, beautifully controlled examination of friendship and betrayal

Gurnah’s first novel since being awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature is set in 90s Zanzibar, where three friends from different backgrounds come of age against the complicated backdrop of post-colonial East Africa

Timely and captivating … Simple yet elegant

Gurnah has an elegant, natural prose style which he employs in a Sally Rooney-like technique … like reading a Dickens novel set in recent times and far away in Tanzania

Theft is marvelous - a book of incredible scope and unflinching intimacy that leaps fearlessly among its varied cast of characters, written with absolutely devastating emotional precision. Abdulrazak Gurnah has written another classic

Modesty and modest people are so hard to write about wittily and well yet Abdulrazak Gurnah luminously portrays the early years of a modest young man of no obvious importance. Theft is a morality tale in the truest sense: an unshowy, vividly evocative story about the things that matter, and the flimflam that really doesn’t

This Nobel winner’s new novel is a hit … Gurnah has a gentle and lyrical style that lets his tightly plotted tale unspool like a fable

A spellbinding family saga

Theft is not just a book. It is an entire universe held together by Abdulrazak Gurnah's beautiful, sensitive prose. In the stories of Badar, Fauzia and Karim rest the questions of entire generations confronting a changing world. But Gurnah also manages to do what only the most accomplished of writers can: In these pages, we begin to recognize the generosity that remains even in moments of pain and chaos. We understand the pockets of light that still exist in those most turbulent days. Gurnah has done it again

A vivid, unpretentious body of work that possesses a powerful dramatic charge by virtue of its focus on the frequently cruel vicissitudes of everyday existence ... Theft is so expertly written, fair-minded and astute

Three young people come of age in post-colonial East Africa in the new novel from the winner of the 2021 Nobel prize in literature. At the turn of the 21st century, change is coming to Tanzania – but will the dreams of young servant boy Badar be realised along with those of his wealthier, more educated friends?

A characteristically poised and elegant story about three young people growing up in present-day Tanzania

Theft by 2021 laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah is the story of the intertwined lives of three young people coming-of-age in postcolonial east Africa

Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah is the highly anticipated first novel since Gurnah won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021. Set in Zanzibar in the 1990s, this coming-of-age novel focuses on three very different young people, including Badar, an uneducated servant boy who has never known his parents

Abdulrazak Gurnah is the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021. He is the author of ten novels: Memory of Departure , Pilgrims Way , Dottie , Paradise (shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Award), Admiring Silence , By the Sea (longlisted for the Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Award), Desertion (shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize) The Last Gift , Gravel Heart , and Afterlives , which was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Fiction 2021 and longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize. He was Professor of English at the University of Kent, and was a Man Booker Prize judge in 2016. He lives in Canterbury.