Jump to content

Memory of Departure

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Memory of Departure
AuthorAbdulrazak Gurnah
CountryUK
LanguageEnglish
PublisherJonathan Cape
Publication date
1987
Pages160
Followed byPilgrims Way 

Memory of Departure is a novel by Abdulrazak Gurnah, first published in 1987 by Jonathan Cape in the United Kingdom.[1] It is Gurnah's first novel. It follows a Muslim man in an unnamed African country who seeks to be educated abroad.[2]

In a review for The New York Times, Richard E. Nicholls praised the novel as "fierce" and "vivid".[2] Kirkus referred to the novel as "artfully spare" and indicated an expectation that "more good things" were to be written by Gurnah.[3] In a 2022 article about Gurnah and his work, published by The New Yorker, Julian Lucas wrote that the novel "established a pattern that Gurnah continued to refine" through his subsequent work of "a ceaseless shuttling between the claustrophobia of home and the loneliness of exile".[4]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Bromley, Roger (1988). "A Mind of Winter". Third World Quarterly. 10 (1): 326–330. ISSN 0143-6597. Retrieved 8 October 2021.
  2. ^ a b Nicholls, Richard E. (17 July 1988). "IN SHORT; FICTION". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 October 2021.
  3. ^ "Book Reviews, Sites, Romance, Fantasy, Fiction". Kirkus Reviews. 15 February 1988. Retrieved 8 October 2021.
  4. ^ Lucas, Julian (17 October 2022). "A Nobel Laureate Revisits the Great War's African Front". The New Yorker. Retrieved 30 October 2022.