Paradise

"A finalist for the 1994 Booker Prize, England's highest honor for works of fiction, Paradise is at once the story of an... (more)

"A finalist for the 1994 Booker Prize, England's highest honor for works of fiction, Paradise is at once the story of an African boy’s coming-of-age, a tragic love story, and a tale of the corruption of African tradition by European colonialism. Sold by his father in repayment of a debt, twelve-year-old Yusuf is thrown from his simple rural life into the complexities of pre-colonial urban East Africa. Through Yusuf’s eyes, Gurnah depicts communities at war, trading safaris gone awry, and the universal trials of adolescence. The result is a page-turning saga that offers a unique perspective on a seldom-chronicled part of the world"--Back cover. (less)

As the book begins deep in Oklahoma early one morning in 1976, nine men from Ruby (pop. 360), in defense of the "one all... (more)

As the book begins deep in Oklahoma early one morning in 1976, nine men from Ruby (pop. 360), in defense of the "one all-black town worth the pain." assault the nearby Convent and the women in it. From the town's ancestral origins in 1890 to the fateful day of the assault, Paradise tells the story of a people ever mindful of the relationship between their spectacular history and a void "Out There...where random and organized evil erupted when and where it chose." (less)