Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Theft, his first novel since winning the Nobel prize for literature in 2021, is set in late 20th and early 21st century Tanzania, a period marked by political and economic shifts as the country transitioned from socialism to a market-driven economy. Foreign aid funded infrastructure, healthcare and education, but also reinforced dependency on external donors.
Gurnah’s writing is deeply rooted in themes of migration, displacement, colonialism, and identity, exploring how history shapes personal and collective experiences. Colonial rule and its lasting impact are central to his work, with stories that reveal how power and inequality persist long after formal independence. He also has a keen eye for power dynamics, showing how privilege and oppression are revealed in intimate relationships as much as in broader society.
In Theft, he demonstrates how big historical events shape small everyday lives. He follows his characters as they come of age amid social change and displacement. Handsome and intelligent Karim grows up in Zanzibar after the revolution that ended Arab rule. His mother, Raya, leaves an unhappy marriage, abandoning him to be raised by his grandparents, a loss that will have a permanent impact on his life. “He would do things differently when he became a father, that was certain. He would make sure his child knew it was desired,” Karim tells himself. As a teenager, he’s taken in by his older half-brother, Ali, who encourages him to attend university in Dar es Salaam. Eventually, Karim returns to Zanzibar to oversee an EU-funded environmental initiative and marries Fauzia, a local teacher.
Equally bright and capable, Fauzia grows up under the weight of her mother’s fears and past trauma. Khadija, haunted by miscarriages and political upheaval, keeps her epileptic daughter close, pushing for caution over ambition. Fauzia feels trapped by her mother’s anxiety and the narrow expectations of her community. While her marriage to Karim promises a fresh start, over time she begins to feel trapped in different ways.
Thirteen-year-old servant boy Badar, meanwhile, is sent from his village to work for Raya. Raised by an adoptive family that has treated him harshly, not much is known about him. When Raya dismisses him, Karim takes him under his wing, eventually securing him a front-desk job at a hotel catering to foreign tourists. The young boy constantly questions his place in the world. Is he a servant, a friend, or something in between?
One of the novel’s strongest themes is the blurred line between charity and control, opportunity and exploitation. Karim believes he’s helping Badar, yet often treats him with condescension, and fails to see how deeply their power dynamic affects him. Fauzia is kind but too consumed by her own struggles to fully reach him. And Badar, caught in the middle, is always on the edge of something better, but never fully part of it.
Foreign intervention comes under intense scrutiny. EU programmes, relief workers, and tourists come to Zanzibar promising progress, but their influence is more complicated and often damaging. The arrival of Geraldine, a white aid worker staying at Badar’s hotel, is a turning point. “She is not a tourist. She is a volunteer,” Fauzia tells her mother. “What’s the difference?” Khadija asks. Though well-educated and polite, Geraldine’s presence disrupts the delicate balance between the three central characters. By the novel’s end, all of them are changed in painful and lasting ways.
Gurnah doesn’t hold back in his critique of foreign aid. Khadija puts it bluntly: “They come here with their filth and their money and interfere with us and ruin our lives for their pleasure, and it seems that we cannot resist their wealth and their filthy ways … There was something we knew about living that we no longer know now. We have become shameless of our own accord.”
The title, Theft, is open to multiple interpretations. “I’ve just finished a story about a man who has everything,” says Karim to Badar. “How do you think the story will end?” he asks the boy, disguising his painful taunt as a moral lesson. “He dies and the servant disappears with what few valuables were still in the man’s house. He robs the dead man.” Like his educated and wealthy peers Karim assumes that servants will steal, given half the chance.
But Gurnah is far more interested in the theft of trust, opportunity, and dignity. Karim accuses Badar of lacking ambition, yet Badar has never had the space to dream bigger. Khadija and Raya remain caught in the lingering trauma of revolution, while the younger characters strive for independence yet remain deeply influenced by the past they inherit. Even the well-meaning European visitors end up taking more than they give.
Theft doesn’t offer tidy resolutions. Instead, it leaves readers with a sense of unease, raising questions about what people owe one another and how easily relationships can be distorted by silence and shame. Some might find Gurnah’s style too reticent, but it’s that understated tension that makes this story so powerful.
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