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Bloomsbury presents Gravel Heart by Abdulrazak Gurnah read by Damian Lynch

From the winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature a powerful story of exile migration and betrayal

Salim has always known that his father does not want him Living with his parents and his adored Uncle Amir in a house full of secrets he is a bookish child a dreamer haunted by night terrors It is the 1970s and Zanzibar is changing Tourists arrive the islands white sands obscuring the memory of recent conflictthe longedfor independence from British colonialism swiftly followed by bloody revolution When his father moves out retreating into disheveled introspection Salim is confused and ashamed His mother does not discuss the change nor does she explain her absences with a strange man silence is layered on silence

When glamorous Uncle Amir now a senior diplomat offers Salim an escape the lonely teenager travels to London for college But nothing has prepared him for the biting cold and seething crowds of this hostile city Struggling to find a foothold and to understand the darkness at the heart of his family he must face devastating truths about those closest to himand about love sex and power Evoking the immigrant experience with unsentimental precision and profound understanding Gravel Heart is a powerfully affecting story of isolation identity belonging and betrayal and Abdulrazak Gurnahs most astonishing achievement