It is worth noting that the novel also lives today because what it can contribute while it is fading in the face of increasing use of the digital and visual presentation while the novel as a form of literature seems to be declining away. So why Abdulrazak Gurnah was awarded the Nobel Prize? The Commonwealth was an organization that has been etched in the memory of the wonderful contributions of novelists like Salman Rushdie, VS Naipaul, Alan Paton and a host of others and there is a nuance in the case of Gurnah.
And that is the role of Islam in the lives of the people. The novel begins with Indians who play with African women until they are ready to send for an Indian wife then abandon the former. But Khalifa’s father Qassem married his mother and remained faithful to her all his life. His mother never left his father. This virtue stands out in the face of the growing infidelity of this time today. The Gujarati Muslims have a natural obligation to help each other unlike other communities in the commonwealth countries in Africa and elsewhere. Khalifa and Biasha married in 1970.
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Understanding the matter better
Amur Biashara was instrumental in the marriage which led husband and wife to assert that each of the two were given to the other by Amur. Khalifa welcomed Ilyas who knew the German language There is a perversion that is sourced from the German soldiers. It is masochistic and sadistic. “The lieutenant Oberlutenant stepped forward and slapped Hamza on the cheek then slapped him with the back of his hand on the cheek. Hamza gasped from the shock and after a moment felt flesh tingling with pain. The officer was now inches away and Hamza breathed in again the astringent and the medicinal smell he had caught the first morning the Oberleutnant inspected recruits, only now he knew it was schnapps.”
In the face of approaching defeat at the hands of the British army, this is what happened. “You are still there. You are so quiet, he said. Hamza did not know what he wanted of him. He was trapped in the officer’s embrace and was made queasy by the enforced intimacy although it was easier to evade it in war than it had been in the boma (peace). The Germans did not take hostages because they killed their enemies and ate them up. There was a crisis when African soldiers under the command of Oberleutnant started deserting making life more difficult.
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Addressing the Oberleutnant a subordinate blamed Hamza. “This traitor of yours betrayed us. He incited them to go. he  told them lies and they deserted.” This made Feldwebel Walthel extremely angry and in an instant, he attacked him with a sword and slashed his hip. He was taken to the Kilemba mission where Pascal looked after him. By then the British took over and he was healed. The crux of the matter was the long and supervised courtship that Afia and Hamza went through. There is hardly any vulgarity let alone nudity in it. Moreover, Khalifa is the custodian to supervise.