Memory of Departure

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Memory of Departure
Memory of Departure.jpg
Author Abdulrazak Gurnah
LanguageEnglish
Publisher Jonathan Cape
Publication date
1987
Publication placeUK
Pages160
Followed by Pilgrims 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]

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References

  1. Bromley, Roger (1988). "A Mind of Winter". Third World Quarterly . 10 (1): 326–330. ISSN   0143-6597 . Retrieved 8 October 2021.
  2. 1 2 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.