Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

Chance

A novel with a Conradian debt
by
March 2025, no. 473

Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah

Bloomsbury, $32.99 pb, 351 pp

Buy this book

ABR receives a commission on items purchased through this link. All ABR reviews are fully independent.

Chance

A novel with a Conradian debt
by
March 2025, no. 473

What’s in a novel’s epigraph – this one for example: ‘In a general way it’s very difficult for one to become remarkable’? We might read these words as an elliptical suggestion that the narrative we are about to encounter will raise the question of character. Perhaps we will witness one or more characters struggling to achieve something out of the ordinary – or struggling in entirely unremarkable ways, remaining unremarkable. Such is the stuff of much of the best fiction, after all, as well as the course of most lives.

Theft

Theft

by Abdulrazak Gurnah

Bloomsbury, $32.99 pb, 351 pp

Buy this book

ABR receives a commission on items purchased through this link. All ABR reviews are fully independent.

From the New Issue

You May Also Like

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.