Set between Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam in the 1990s, Theft follows three young people — Badar, Karim and Fauzia — whose lives become entangled.

Badar, separated from his parents and raised as something between dependant and servant, is brought into a wealthy household where he forms a friendship with Karim. A false accusation eventually drives him from the house, forcing him into another life while leaving the relationships formed there stubbornly intact. 

Gurnah uses the intimacy of those relationships to look at inheritance in its broadest sense. Friendship, shame, desire and betrayal unfold alongside the larger transformations of postcolonial East Africa. Here, the politics remain embedded in houses, jobs, obligations, small humiliations and uneven freedoms. It is characteristically subte Gurnah: patient, socially exact and particularly alert to the way power can operate without ever announcing itself as power. 

Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2025. Advance reading copy / uncorrected proof, issued prior to publication and not for resale. Paperback. Very light shelf and handling wear; internally clean and unmarked, binding firm. Near fine condition.