Afterlives Titelbild

Afterlives

By the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021

 Reinhören
Zeitlich begrenztes Angebot

3 Monate Audible Standard kostenlos testen

3 Monate Audible Standard kostenlos testen, danach 6,99 €/Monat. Monatlich kündbar.
Jetzt abonnieren
Das Angebot endet am 15. Juli 2026 23:59 Uhr. Dieses Angebot sichern!
Weitere Angebote

Afterlives

Von: Abdulrazak Gurnah
Gesprochen von: Damian Lynch
Jetzt abonnieren

3 Monate Audible Standard für 0,99 €/Monat, danach 6,99 €/Monat. Monatlich kündbar. Angebot gültig bis zum 15. Juli 2026 um 23:59 Uhr.

Für 16,79 € kaufen

Für 16,79 € kaufen

Bloomsbury presents Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah, read by Damian Lynch.

BY THE WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE 2021

'One of Africa's greatest living writers' Giles Foden
'Exquisite' Telegraph
‘A remarkable novel, by a wondrous writer’ Philippe Sands
'To read Afterlives is to be returned to the joy of storytelling' Aminatta Forna
'Effortlessly compelling storytelling ... You forget that you are reading fiction, it feels so real' Leila Aboulela


Restless, ambitious Ilyas was stolen from his parents by the Schutzruppe askari, the German colonial troops; after years away, he returns to his village to find his parents gone, and his sister Afiya given away.

Hamza was not stolen, but was sold; he has come of age in the army, at the right hand of an officer whose control has ensured his protection but marked him for life. Hamza does not have words for how the war ended for him. Returning to the town of his childhood, all he wants is work, however humble, and security – and the beautiful Afiya.

The century is young. The Germans and the British and the French and the Belgians and whoever else have drawn their maps and signed their treaties and divided up Africa. As they seek complete dominion they are forced to extinguish revolt after revolt by the colonised. The conflict in Europe opens another arena in east Africa where a brutal war devastates the landscape.

As these interlinked friends and survivors come and go, live and work and fall in love, the shadow of a new war lengthens and darkens, ready to snatch them up and carry them away.©2020 Abdulrazak Gurnah (P)2020 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC 20. Jahrhundert Belletristik Familienleben Historische Romane
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1

Kritikerstimmen

A tender account of the extraordinariness of ordinary lives, Afterlives combines entrancing storytelling with writing whose exquisite emotional precision confirms Gurnah’s place among the outstanding stylists of modern English prose. Like its predecessors, this is a novel that demands to be read and reread, for its humour, generosity of spirit and clear-sighted vision of the infinite contradictions of human nature
From the first assured pages of Afterlives, a book of quiet beauty and tragedy, it is clear one is in the hands of a master storyteller
A deeply compelling novel that opens in the early years of the 20th century, during Germany’s brutal colonial rule in East Africa. Oscillating between the personal and political, Gurnah opens the imagination, the connections between that moment, what followed in Europe, and our own struggles to grapple with the legacies of colony and race. The final pages are as devastating as any I have read. A brilliant and important book for our times, by a wondrous writer (Philippe Sands)
Riveting and heartbreaking ... A compelling novel, one that gathers close all those who were meant to be forgotten, and refuses their erasure. (Maaza Mengiste)
In clean, measured prose, Gurnah zooms in on individual acts of violence ... and unexpected acts of kindness. Affecting in its ordinariness, Afterlives is a compelling exploration of the urge to find places of sanctuary
A remarkable novel, by a wondrous writer, deeply compelling, a thread that links our humanity with the colonial legacy that lies beneath, in ways that cut deep (Philippe Sands)
To read Afterlives is to be returned to the joy of storytelling as Abdulrazak Gurnah takes us to the place where imagined lives collide with history. In prose as clear and as rhythmic as the waters of the Indian Ocean, the story of Hamza and Afiya is one of simple lives buffeted by colonial ambitions, of the courage it takes to endure, to hold oneself with dignity, and to live with hope in the heart (Aminatta Forna)
Effortlessly compelling storytelling ... Gurnah excels at depicting the lives of those made small by cruelty and injustice ... A beautiful, cruel world of bittersweet encounters and pockets of compassion, twists of fate and fluctuating fortunes ... You forget that you are reading fiction, it feels so real (Leila Aboulela)
As beautifully written and pleasurable as anything I've read ... The work of a maestro
An aural archive of a lost Africa ... alive with the unexpected. In it, an obliterated world is enthrallingly retrieved
Rarely in a lifetime can you open a book and find that reading it encapsulates the enchanting qualities of a love affair ... one scarcely dares breathe while reading it for fear of breaking the enchantment
Many layered, violent, beautiful and strange ... a poetic and vividly conjured book about Africa and the brooding power of the unknown
Alle Sterne
Am relevantesten
This inside view of the Deutsche Schutztruppe gives a frighteningly clear picture on how the combination of racism and militarism developes into genocide.
Locations like Dar es Salaam, the Ruvuma region and the place where was killed and later burried Chief Mkwawa, are convincingly presented. The story of Chief Mkwawa was the reason why the Federal Republic of Germany, in times of the Hallstein-Doctrine withheld all development cooperation from Tanzania, the poorest country in the world by the time.
The characters in the novel are wisely chosen and convey the content unmistakably.
Nazi ideology made the history of the Deutsche Schutztruppe its basis. Adolf Hitler in his book 'Mein Kampf' included plagiarisms of racist authors, former colonial officers and revanchists as early as 1925-26.
I only learned that it was a Nobel Prize winning novel when looking for a printed German-language edition to recommend - and in my understanding the award is well deserved.
The audiobook is well read, where helpful, with light local dialect, accent-free German quotations, always appropriate to the sensitive topic.

inside view of the Deutsche Schutztruppe

Ein Fehler ist aufgetreten. Bitte versuche es in ein paar Minuten noch einmal.
I needed some time to get used to the slower rhythm of storytelling but then was drawn into the lives of the characters. Ending very abrupt but beautiful.

Something different and worth reading

Ein Fehler ist aufgetreten. Bitte versuche es in ein paar Minuten noch einmal.
i must have bought the wrong book/author. nothing special about this story nor storytelling. not saying it was bad. I guess I had to high expectations.

not Nobelprice like

Ein Fehler ist aufgetreten. Bitte versuche es in ein paar Minuten noch einmal.
I willed myself through this audiobook as it was by a nobel prize winner after all. While I learnt a good deal about colonial history, the main characters remained distant and I could not relate in a meaningful way to them although I spent so many hours following their lives. It leaves me somewhat disappointed.

Good history lesson, but characters remain stale

Ein Fehler ist aufgetreten. Bitte versuche es in ein paar Minuten noch einmal.