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as all contributors to this in 1991. But they were not
compendium observe, the sustained and halted by a AFTERLIVES
CCP (Communist Party of slew of scandals under the Abdulrazak Gurnah
China) regime in Beijing UPA-I and II governments BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING
ingeniously played several led by the Congress party Rs.499
naïve presidents and policy which remained hostile Pages 273
formulators in Washing- to private enterprise and
ton. What they didn’t fac- enamoured with socialism.
tor into their patronising The outcome is that while
indulgence of China was China’s GDP has climbed
the emergence in 1978 of to $16 trillion, India’s is a tion, migration, identity Nobel laureate
economic reformer Deng mere $3 trillion. and slavery. In an essay Abdulrazak Gurnah
Xiaoping as secretary- In the 19th century published in 2004, Gur- focuses on themes
general of CPC. French Emperor Napolean nah explains that his own of displacement,
Taking full advantage of Bonaparte is believed to hardships, anxiety, state colonisation, identity
Western largesse towards have remarked: “Let China terror and humiliation, as and slavery
China, he jettisoned the sleep, for when she wakes, he migrated from Zanzibar
communist licence-permit- she will shake the world”. to the UK, became promi-
quota rules and regulations Fifty years ago the Kiss- nent themes in his works. and the abuse and violence
and unleashed the sup- inger/Nixon duo aroused The background of this to which she is regularly
pressed entrepreneurial the Chinese dragon and novel is the German occu- subjected. Ilyas escapes
and industrious capabili- for the next three decades, pation of East Africa, the and returns to his hardly
ties of the Chinese people. gullible American policy Maji Maji Uprising against recognisable ancestral vil-
Consequently, powered wonks encouraged its ap- the Germans and the First lage in search of his sister.
by free enterprise, China’s petite and growth. World War. It explores The protagonist, Ham-
GDP grew by a globally Now under the iron fist the impact of European za, is introduced in the
unprecedented 10 percent of the 100 million strong colonialism, and violence second section which piv-
per year for the next three self-serving CCP, China and racism of Germans in ots around his harrowing
decades, transforming is shaking the world. And Africa, hitherto a well-kept experiences in the German
PRC into an industrial and its tremors are especially secret. army fighting World War
manufacturing power- strong in neighbouring The book is divided I, including sexual abuse
house which flooded global India which in a classic into four sections. The by an officer. The horrors
markets under benign replay of the fable of the first takes the reader to of war come alive in this
WTO rules applicable to grasshopper and the ant, the heart of a bleeding section. Severely wounded,
developing countries. wasted economic reform East Africa suffering Ger- Hamza is nursed back to
For all his faults, Don- opportunities and has re- man colonisation and the life by a kind pastor and
ald Trump was the first US mained under-developed Maji Maji uprising. The his family. However, like
President to realise that and backward. Germans, apart from using Ilyas, when he returns to
with their brazen intel- DILIP THAKORE military force, starve the his birthplace on the coast
lectual property theft and people into submission. after seven years, he finds
currency manipulation, Through his slow and it unrecognisable, with no
21st century communist German detailed narration, Gurnah trace of family and friends.
China had surreptitiously recreates the trauma and Neighbourhoods had just
grown into the world’s colonisation horrors of colonisation. vanished. “When he fled it
second largest ($15 tril- Lives are torn asunder, had seemed like an undo-
lion) economy, second exposé shattered and bruised. ing of a life but for now it
only to America and with Ilyas runs away from has ended with the futility
the CCP firmly in control, FTERLIVES IS home, only to be captured of him returning to where
had developed formidable the latest book by German troops. His he had been before, older,
military capabilities. Afrom Abdulrazak sister, Afiya, is given away half-broken, empty-hand-
Meanwhile next door in Gurnah, the Nobel laure- to another family by her ed,” writes Gurnah.
India a converse tragedy ate for literature, 2021. father after her mother’s In section three,
of missed opportunities His novels predominantly death. Gurnah graphically Hamza, overwhelmed
unfolded. India’s liberal focus on the themes of details Afiya’s miserable by the cruelties he has
economic reforms came displacement, colonisa- life with her foster parents experienced, makes a de-

98 EDUCATIONWORLD APRIL 2022