**Selected as a Book of the Summer 2025 by the Guardian Financial Times Granta Economist
and the BBC ** **Selected as a book of the year 2025 by the Financial Times and Time
Magazine** 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 'A poignant portrait of love friendship and betrayal' Guardian
'Storytelling mastery' Observer 'A piece of great satisfying storytelling to lose yourself
in ' Samantha Harvey Guardian Books of the Summer 'The reader can only rejoice at Gurnah's
skill in giving us the whole of a life in such nimble scenes' Financial Times 'Another
glittering tapestry of a novel from a master storyteller of our times' Irish Times
_________________________________________________________ What are we given and what do we
have to take for ourselves? It is the 1990s. Growing up in Zanzibar three very different
young people - Karim Fauzia and Badar - are coming of age and dreaming of great possibilities
in their young nation. But for Badar an uneducated servant boy who has never known his parents
it seems as if all doors are closed. Brought into a lowly position in a great house in Dar es
Salaam Badar finds the first true home of his life - and the friendship of Karim the young
man of the house. Even when a shattering false accusation sees Badar sent away Karim and
Fauzia refuse to turn away from their friend. But as the three of them take their first steps
in love infatuation work and parenthood their bond is tested - and Karim is tempted into a
betrayal that will change all of their lives forever. 'In reading this wise new novel we the
readers become a bit more ready to understand what it means to be human' Elif Shafak New
Statesman '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' Observer
