Booklover — Timely

Column Editor: Donna Jacobs (Retired, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC 29425) <donna.jacobs55@gmail.com>

Squalor. Shame. Societal Struggles. Sodomy. Senility. Self-esteem. Scholarly Success. Shadows. All are subject threads in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s 1987 debut novel, Memory of Departure. A coming of age story set on the coast of Gurnah’s native continent of Africa. And yes, once again, this Booklover is enchanted with how these varieties of subjects, some quite intense, are delivered in such a lovely literary fashion to make the novel a page-turner. Read it in two sittings.

Abdulrazak Gurnah was awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in

Literature “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.” When interviewed about the award, he thought the phone call was a prank. Born on the island of Zanzibar in 1948 he fled the persecution of the citizens of Arab origin under President Abeid Karume’s regime that occurred after the liberation from British colonial rule in 1963. Gurnah’s refugee journey took him to England where he “stumbled into” writing as a mechanism for him to wrap his head around his emigrant experience. Gurnah recently retired from his position as Professor of English and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Kent in Canterbury. One of the authors that he focused on in his lectures was Wole Soyinka, the first African author to become a Nobel Laureate in 1986 and the subject of a Booklover column two years ago.

In Memory of Departure, Gurnah’s first novel, the author uses a simple story to illustrate his emotional emigrant journey. Broken family living in a broken society. The young man of the family does well in school. Young man’s family has no resources to pay for further formal education. Young man journeys to a wealthy relative to petition for assistance. Young man falls in love. Young man is humiliated. Young man journeys to sea to find himself and hopefully a future. Nothing simple, though, about the way Gurnah weaves the words to tell the story. To quote without story context would leave one feeling confused — so here goes an attempt to quote with context. Best to read the novel in entirety and enjoy the memory. Hassan is finishing his schooling: “Manhood arrived largely unremarked: no slaying of a ram, no staff and scroll and the command to go seek God and fortune.” He knew independence was close yet “I think we knew that even as we deluded ourselves with visions of unity and racial harmony. With our history of the misuse and oppression of Africans by an alliance of Arabs, Indians and Europeans, it was naïve to expect things would turn out differently. And even where distinctions were no longer visible to the naked eye, remnants of blood were always reflected in the division of the spoils of privilege. As the years passed, we bore with rising desperation the betrayal of the promise of freedom.”

After graduation, Hassan needs resources for further education. While traveling by train to Nairobi for an audience with the wealthy relative who might provide said resources, Hassan shares a train car with Moses, a young man who claims to be a student at the university. Moses relates how he was such a great student he went right to university: “‘So it is easy for me. I’m doing Literature. I can take it or leave it, you know, this Literature. I did well in it at school, and I knew my teacher wanted me to do it. The headmaster thought it was a good idea too. Literature is life, he used to say. (GREAT line!) What did he know about life?’”

Arriving in the big city of Nairobi, Hassan navigates the train station: “It was what more romantic travellers would have described as the zest for life that was unmistakably African, the dance that was part of the natural rhythm of life. I found the crowd confusing and frightening.”

In the home of the wealthy relative, Bwana Ahmed, Hassan meets his cousin, Salma, for the first time. She immediately captures his attention both by her beauty and by her concern for him.

“‘Discrimination?’ she asked. The word sounded innocent, spoken by somebody who had not yet experienced its full squalor. I sensed some skepticism in her tone, some reluctance to credit the response that she expected me to make.

‘Something like that,’ I said. ‘Like what?’ she asked, frowning. ‘Like….yes. There is discrimination. People are victimised because they don’t have a black skin. It’s revenge. They are paying back what they owe. People are afraid. Harsh things happen. Cruel things are done. I think it hurts everybody in the end. I think it’s bad for everybody. We all end up being a little less human.’” The simple gesture of the offer of bread, called Boflo, creates a memory. “Boflo. The word suddenly brought back a memory of home. The fishermen cleaning their dugouts and watering their nets, punching holes in the water which flashed up like fragments of light. Wavecrests rearing out of the green sea. Weeds washed up on the beach like sunburnt dreams, washed and left, sinking into the wet, porous sand. In the distance a tiny boat bobs and bucks on the surface, frantic and purposeless. A log of sea-salted wood lies rotting, disembowelled, on the beach, laid open like the belly of a dolphin.”

And although the world has been open somewhat to Hassan, nothing good comes of his attempt for resources, family awareness, or a budding relationship with Salma. He returns home empty handed to a degenerating family situation. He takes a position on a ship as a medical orderly as a way to flee his situation. In the final chapter he writes to Salma, a love letter of sorts. Maybe sometime in his future there will be no more departure, only its memory.

“What is the point of literature? i think that the person who asks that question will not find my answer convincing anyway.” — Abdulrazak gurnah, gravel Heart