Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah

When Abdulrazak Gurnah won the Nobel Prize in literature last year, not nearly enough people had read anything by the Tanzanian-born writer, myself included. He fled to England as a teenage refugee after the 1964 uprising in Zanzibar. He began writing fiction in English — his first language was Swahili — and eventually became an English professor at the University of Kent, where he taught for several decades. Throughout his career, he has worked to impress upon a forgetful world the experiences of displaced people, and this is a fine example of that. It is set in early 20th century East Africa, with a multitude of colonial baggage. At the center of the story is an Indian African man named Khalif. Equipped with some bookkeeping skills, a little English and an enthusiasm for gossip, Khalifa gets a job as a clerk for a local merchant, a kind of landlubber pirate who plays both sides of German rule. The story veers between hope and despair, with a side of cruelty balanced by acts of kindness. It is a great story well told.