Afterlives

Afterlives

Abdulrazak Gurnah

Afterlives was written in the background of brutal colonization of East Africa by European countries. 

"The Germans and the British and the Portuguese and the Italians and whoever else had their congress and signed their treaties", divided East Africa, made their maps and considered natives like natural resources that they came to exploit. 

I had to Google a lot to gain some information about East Africa. My knowledge about the continent was limited.

"That was how that part of the world at that time, every bit of it belonged to Europeans, at least on the map: British East Africa, Deutsch- Ostafrka, Africa Oriental Portuguesa, Congo Belge."

 But the beauty of Afterlives is that amongst all the bloodshed and devastation, ("the soil was soaked in blood and corpses littered everywhere") a few people in a coastal town of Deutsch-Ostafrika, held on and led lives as normal as possible.

Central to the narrative was Khalifa, an IndioAfrican man. Khalifa was living with a tutor to learn to read and write, when Germans invaded. There were resistances all over by African groups like Al Bushiri which were crushed brutally by the German forces, the schutztruppe. 

Khalifa, lived all his life through the invasion, but somehow remained mostly unaffected by the brutality all around. He found a job, got married, spent his evenings at his porch with a group of friends, indulging tea and gossips.

When his friend Ilyas , wanted to join the schutztruppe to fight the British, Khalifa tried to put sense into his mind;

" Are you mad? What has this to do with you? This is between two violent vicious invaders."

They are fighting over who should swallow us whole. "

But Ilyas was not to be dissuaded. A single German's acts of kindness made him a 

die -hard German sympathiser. He failed to look around him and ultimately paid the price.

Khalifa gave refuge to Afiya (Ilyas's little sister) and later to Hamza (who was an askari, African soldier of schutztruppe.) and played the role of a grandfather to little Ilyas (son of Hamza and Afiya). Until he passed away peacefully one day in his sixties, he lead more or less a peaceful life except for the tongue lashings of his ill tempered wife. 

Hamza joined the schutztruppe, running away from  bonded labour. He immediately regretted his decision to join the German forces. He sensed  violence the German officers were capable of even if the commander had a soft spot for him. 

He was always watchful, aware of the happenings around him and never failed to see the larger picture. Cautious and hardworking, Hamza gradually grabbed a reasonably content life with the woman he fell in love.

All the characters , Khalifa, Afiya, Ilyas, and Hamza had miserable childhoods; Orphaned or abandoned or abducted. That could  be the story of many children  during the time. Mosquitoes and diseases were rampant and together fought  impartial battles and acted as great levellers.

But towards the end, years went too fast in the book. Earlier parts were discussed with the minutest details, the 'barazas ' at Kahalifa's porch, the ritual that was conducted at his home, the 'boma ' ( the Schtzutruppe  camp) and blossoming love between Hamza and Afiya were all graphically portrayed, but the last few years went in a jiffy. 

Afterlives is a mesmerizing book, that portrays a bright picture of love , resilience and kindness in a dark background.

Preetha Raj