Abdulrazak Gurnah: Paradise

Harriett Gilbert talks with Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah about his hauntingly beautiful novel Paradise. It tells the story of Yusuf, a 12 year-old boy living in East Africa at the beginning of the 20th Century. Sold off to settle his father’s debts, Yusuf embarks on a journey across the African continent. Through his naive and innocent eyes, the journey starts out as an adventure, but every wonderous thing Yusuf sees, every glimpse of paradise, is polluted by violence, the growing influence of colonialism, and the looming spectre of World War One. Paradise is a stunning novel - a multi-faceted, vivid exploration of the shifting culture of Africa at the turn of the century. It’s layered with mythology, Biblical and Koranic symbolism, and an unflinching insight into the effects of colonialism.

You can listen to Abdulrazak Gurnah: Paradise online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Abdulrazak Gurnah: Paradise is an episode from World Book Club by BBC.

This episode is 49:26 long.

This episode was published on May 3, 2025.

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