By the Sea (novel)

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By the Sea
By the Sea - Cover - 8 July 2002.jpg
First paperback edition (2002)
AuthorAbdulrazak Gurnah
LanguageEnglish
PublisherBloomsbury Publishing (UK); The New Press (US)
Publication date
2001
Pages245
Preceded byAdmiring Silence 
Followed byDesertion 

By the Sea is a novel by Abdulrazak Gurnah. It was first published in the United States by The New Press on 11 June 2001[1] and in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury Publishing in May 2001.[2] It is Gurnah's sixth novel.[3] By the Sea was longlisted for the Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.[4]

By the Sea is narrated, in part, by a man named Saleh Omar, who is attempting to enter the United Kingdom on a fake passport.[5][6] Omar also goes by the pseudonym "Rajab Shaaban Mahmud", an identity he stole to use on his fake passport.[6] The novel is also narrated, in part, by Latif Mahmud, the son of the real Rajab Shaaban Mahmud—a man who turns out to be a scoundrel.[6] Mahmud also travels to Europe, but by a more legitimate route—obtaining a student visa to East Germany and travelling by a circuitous route from there to the UK.[7]

Michael Pye, in a review for The New York Times, notes the novel's self-conscious echoes of Herman Melville's short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener". Saleh Omar, the protagonist, quotes Bartleby's mantra "I would prefer not to"; Pye argues that "[b]y invoking Melville, Gurnah opens a little inquest into the nature of pity itself."[8]

Critic Sissy Helff argues that By the Sea "is a fine example of a confrontation of readers with a highly complex picture of the predicament of refugees in the wake of movement and migration".[7]

References[]

  1. ^ "By the Sea". Kirkus Reviews. 1 April 2001. Archived from the original on 7 October 2021. Retrieved 7 October 2021.
  2. ^ Clark, Candida (19 May 2001). "Observer review: By the Sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah". The Observer. Archived from the original on 10 August 2020. Retrieved 7 October 2021.
  3. ^ Olaussen 2009, p. 217.
  4. ^ "Abdulrazak Gurnah". Booker Prize. Archived from the original on 7 October 2021. Retrieved 7 October 2021.
  5. ^ Erouart-Siad, Patrick (1 June 2001). "Review: By the Sea". Boston Review. Archived from the original on 6 September 2020. Retrieved 7 October 2021.
  6. ^ a b c Olaussen 2009, p. 218.
  7. ^ a b Helff 2008, p. 393.
  8. ^ Pye, Michael (10 June 2001). "He'd Prefer Not To". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 7 October 2021. Retrieved 7 October 2021.

Sources[]

  • Helff, Sissy (January 2008). "Imagining Flight in Abdulrazak Gurnah's By the Sea". Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik. 56 (4). doi:10.1515/zaa.2008.56.4.391. ISSN 2196-4726.
  • Olaussen, Maria (2009). "Refusing to Speak as a Victim: Agency and the Arrivant in Abdulrazak Gurnah's Novel By the Sea". In Angelfors, Christina; Olaussen, Maria (eds.). Africa Writing Europe: Opposition, Juxtaposition, Entanglement. Brill Publishers. doi:10.1163/9789042029279_009. ISBN 978-90-420-2927-9.


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