With a title like “Theft,” it’s not unreasonable to expect that most readers of Abdulrazak Gurnah’s new novel will expect a story centered around a significant theft, or a series of thefts or a community of thieves. These readers, however, will be surprised to find that “Theft” has little to do with literal thievery. “Theft,” in fact, repeatedly defies what one might expect from modern literary fiction: maybe a novel obsessed with narrative drive, riddled with beautiful prose or chock-full of thematic tension. That Gurnah’s first published novel since his 2021 win of the Nobel Prize in Literature does not possess these elements to the same degree as its contemporaries is not a statement of his inferiority. On the contrary — it is an intelligent move, purposefully sidestepping the trappings of what makes a book feel “literary” in favor of something arguably much more important: what makes a book feel true.
In his novel, Gurnah opts for a mode of storytelling that I can only refer to as extreme realism. It is a tale of real people living real lives, not for the sake of their narrative power, but because this is simply what would likely happen. While the novel is separated into many perspectives, the focal points are centered on three individuals: Karim, a son born into an unhappy marriage who grows into a well-educated architectural developer; Badar, a poor boy forced into servitude after his father can no longer pay for his son’s care; and Fauzia, a girl with aspirations of becoming a teacher. By the end of the novel each storyline will fully converge. The book’s chronological narrative, beginning with the parents of the three in 1960s Tanzania, gives each story space to grow before intertwining their stories.
It is here that the strongest element of “Theft” emerges: its plot. Counterintuitively to many books of its kind, “Theft” seems to place no distinction between the “interesting” or especially dramatic points of its story and the more mundane. This is not an issue of pacing — the book excels here, feeling especially even throughout — but an intentional choice of ideological assignment of importance. Though what we may traditionally consider the thrust of the novel occurs only in the last third of “Theft,” each and every incident that comes before feels relevant and important to the success of this final part, though they appear insignificant at first glance. It is important that we see exactly how Badar struggles to adjust to his overwhelming role as a servant, and equally crucial that we explore Karim’s relationship with his older brother Ali, although neither of these elements have explicit plot significance later. Effectively, the book announces that each moment in each character’s life is worthy of discovery and important to their development as people, not simply the “exciting” ones.
This brings us to the strange, but rather refreshing, prose style that Gurnah chooses for this novel. Instead of leaving layers of internality for the reader to speculate upon, the book repeatedly goes out of its way to lay out each and every motivation for characters’ actions, even within its limited first-person perspectives. Take, for example, Badar, who comes to work for a wealthier family as a serving boy. When his employer takes him out to get new clothing, Badar reflects, “I liked being without, liked wearing shabby secondhand clothes.” Where many books would leave this statement here, imposing the responsibility of assigning the reasons behind such a thought to reader interpretation, Gurnah goes a step further. Badar continues, “because it reminded him of his lowly condition and allowed him to indulge in warming self-pity when he needed to.” The unambiguous style is bold but satisfies a reader looking for a full picture of people rather than contrived caricatures.
However, while fully realized in some respects, “Theft” is not without flaws. It’s not difficult to find instances of Gurnah’s female characters lacking depth, even with the explicit attention placed on the exploration of their internal selves. Fauzia is the key example here: Despite being at the novel’s core, the level of understanding we get of her life is leagues below that of her male counterparts. This, combined with her narrative position as a love triangle hinge, leaves her flatter than many others, even those who are not main characters. Still, there is some nuance to these portrayals. Raya, Karim’s mother, for example, is both involved in an abusive arranged marriage and a somewhat neglectful mother, superseding the stereotype of the perfect victim.
All of this leaves us with an important question: why? Why choose such a measured mode of narration? The book itself answers. Centered on Tanzania at the turn of the century, a nation adapting to its independence, this story describes the effect that such destabilizing forces has on entire lifetimes, without any need for extravagant metaphors. Karim’s education, Badar’s servitude and Fauzia’s struggle with motherhood all serve the realism of their characters first and any thematic motivations behind these paths second. While they have traces of colonialism present in their life paths, their characterizations aren’t solely made to tell this story. Instead, they exist to show what life was like in the second half of the 1900s. Tanzania; a simple goal, yet one that many Western audiences have no exposure to otherwise.
We can then return to our original question: Why choose “Theft” as a title? Gurnah does not hope to turn our attention to a real, visual theft in his novel, but instead directs us to the theft that comes from absence. Each character has something taken from them — the chance for an education, a father, a husband — completely outside of their control, often motivated by colonialist forces. The people that they become are not only forced to learn to live in a world without these things, but also are shaped by the very things that they cannot have. But, unlike many inferior novels concerned with the same subject matter, Gurnah highlights an important caveat to such a sentiment: No matter what has been taken from you, you are still there.
Daily Arts Writer Grace Sielinski can be reached at gsielins@umich.edu.
