Abdulrazak Gurnah’s ‘Desertion’: The politics of leaving

Zanzibar-born (now Tanzania) writer Abdulrazak Gurnah was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021. One of his 10 published novels, Desertion (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2005) is about—like many of his other works—colonialism, racism, cultural and religious biases, migration, and of course, desertion.

The story spans from 1899 in Mombasa to the 1950s in Zanzibar. In part one of three we are introduced to Hassanali, a shopkeeper, his wife Malika, and his sister Rehana. The first page describes Hassanali walking towards the mosque at dawn to recite the azaan, his heart filled with piety. Just then, he comes across a half-dead European slumped in a heap in front of the mosque, and Hassanali's sense of Muslim charity and brotherhood drives him to take the European to his home nearby, where his wife and sister help to revive him. Next, the inevitable happens: Rehana and Martin Pearce fall in love. She is from a conservative Muslim household and he, a modern European, a member of the ruling class. Their forbidden love becomes a part of the appeal of the story.

The narrow, dilapidated alleyways and the mosque depicted in the book indicate that they live in the less-favoured Muslim neighbourhood in Zanzibar. The rows of houses spell squalor and poverty, a replication of, say, the mudir dokan in Bangladesh. Near it was the neighbourhood tea stall which was, in a way, the pulse of the neighbourhood.

In a secondary plot line, the three representatives of the British Empire converse, over pegs of whiskey, about how justified they are to rule over 'savages' who do not know any better. Martin Pearce joins the District Officer Frederick Turner and the Estate manager Burton in these conversations. They would never socialise with the Bohra Gujratis, Arabs, or the rest who they termed as "mongrel natives."

In these conversations, Gurnah makes a significant reference to Shelley's poem "Ozymandias", the oriental despot. The mighty and powerful can one day turn to dust and ruin. Frederick reflects, though, that the British Empire had many more years of greatness ahead of them before such ruin ever befell them. Making an interesting comparison between colonising Africa and colonising India, he says, "Indian ways are antiquated, whereas in Africa there is nothing but beasts and savagery."

The second part of the book, set in 1950s Zanzibar, is about the brothers Amin and Rashid, their sister Farida, and their parents. Amin trains to be a school teacher while Rashid aspires to study in Cambridge or Oxford, hoping to improve his situation. The education system is further commented on when we are told that Rehana is not competent enough to get admission into the subsidised state school and a private school was not affordable for her, so she turns to dress-making.

Gurnah's motivation to name the book Desertion is made evident with young men like Rashid who desert their native countries for the comforts of the developed countries they migrate to. White men like Pearce desert their lovers. Jamila is abandoned not just by Amin, but by two other husbands before him. One point of view that is debatable is that the British "deserted" their colonies like the islands of Zanzibar before the time was right. I wonder if there is any right time to decolonise. Should the British have left India later than 1947 and would that have reduced the number of deaths of Hindus and Muslims?

The book's language is remarkable and the characters well-drawn. Gurnah, admirably, does not glorify Martin Pearce or Amin as heroes. Like most people in the 1950s and the decades before that, these characters give in to societal pressures and opinions. Even today, you may find yourself under similar pressures. The story appears disjointed at first, but in the end the loose ends are tied up, albeit with some haste. The richness and relevance of the text make it a very worthy and enjoyable read.

Nusrat Huq is a teacher at Sunbeams and a member of The Reading Circle (TRC).