
Paradise
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Narrated by:
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Chukwudi Iwuji
About this listen
From the Nobel Prize winner, a coming-of-age story that illuminates the harshness and beauty of an Africa on the brink of colonization
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Award, Paradise was characterized by the Nobel Prize committee as Abdulrazak Gurnah’s “breakthrough” work. It is at once the chronicle 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 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 what Publishers Weekly calls a “vibrant” and “powerful” work that “evokes the Edenic natural beauty of a continent on the verge of full-scale imperialist takeover.”
©2023 Abdulrazak Gurnah (P)2023 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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- A Novel
- By: Abdulrazak Gurnah
- Narrated by: Connie Mgadzah, Denver Isaac
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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On a late November afternoon, Saleh Omar arrives at Gatwick Airport from his native Zanzibar. With him he has a small bag in which lies his most precious possession—a mahogany box containing incense. He used to own a furniture shop, have a house and be a husband and father. Now he is an asylum seeker from paradise, silence his only protection.
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beautifully written and read
- By ana teresa blank on 03-30-24
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Theft
- A Novel
- By: Abdulrazak Gurnah
- Narrated by: Ashley Zhangazha
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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At the turn of the twenty-first century, three young people come of age in Tanzania. Karim returns to his sleepy hometown after university with new swagger and ambition. Fauzia glimpses in him a chance at escape from a smothering upbringing. The two of them offer a haven to Badar, a poor boy still unsure if the future holds anything for him at all. As tourism, technology, and unexpected opportunities and perils reach their quiet corner of the world, bringing, each arrives at a different understanding of what it means to take your fate into your own hands.
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Potting more than a slice of life
- By Susan on 06-07-25
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The Light of Luna Park
- By: Addison Armstrong
- Narrated by: Rachel L. Jacobs, Karissa Vacker
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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New York City, 1926. Nurse Althea Anderson's heart is near breaking when she witnesses another premature baby die at Bellevue Hospital. So when she reads an article detailing the amazing survival rates of babies treated in incubators in an exhibit at Luna Park, Coney Island, it feels like the miracle she has been searching for. But the doctors at Bellevue dismiss Althea and this unconventional medicine, forcing her to make a choice between a baby's life and the doctors' wishes that will change everything.
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So not believable and extremely sappy * Spoilers*
- By gogacks on 09-26-23
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Between You and Us
- A Novel
- By: Kendra Broekhuis
- Narrated by: Anna Caputo
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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When Leona Warlon heads across the city to meet her husband, David, for a rare dinner out, she hopes they can share a moment of relief after their year of loss. But Leona quickly realizes this is no ordinary date night. She hasn’t just stepped into an upscale ristorante; she’s stepped into a different version of her life. One in which her marriage is no longer tender, in which her days are pressured by her powerful in-laws, and in which her precious baby girl lived.
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Such a great book!!
- By Mykayla Johnson on 10-10-24
By: Kendra Broekhuis
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The Tie That Binds
- By: Kent Haruf
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Colorado, January 1977. Eighty-year-old Edith Goodnough lies in a hospital bed, IV taped to the back of her hand, police officer at her door. She is charged with murder. The clues: a sack of chicken feed slit with a knife, a milky-eyed dog tied outdoors one cold afternoon. The motives: the brutal business of farming and a family code of ethics as unforgiving as the winter prairie itself.
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Sad, No Real Conclusion and Pointless
- By Debbie on 03-28-24
By: Kent Haruf
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Songbirds
- A Novel
- By: Christy Lefteri
- Narrated by: George Georgiou, Indira Varma, Art Malik, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Living on the island of Cyprus, Nisha is far from her native Sri Lanka. Though she longs to return home, she knows that working as a nanny and maid for a wealthy widow is the only way to earn enough to support her daughter, left behind to be raised by relatives. Yiannis is a poacher, trapping the tiny protected songbirds that stop in Cyprus as they migrate each year from Africa to Europe and selling them on the illegal market. He dreams of finding a new way of life, and of marrying Nisha.
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Lovely prose, heartbreaking story
- By RueRue on 12-10-23
By: Christy Lefteri
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Gravel Heart
- By: Abdulrazak Gurnah
- Narrated by: Damian Lynch
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Salim has always known that his father does not want him. Living with his parents and his adored Uncle Amir in a house full of secrets, he is a bookish child, a dreamer haunted by night terrors. It is the 1970s and Zanzibar is changing. Tourists arrive, the island’s white sands obscuring the memory of recent conflict—the longed-for independence from British colonialism swiftly followed by bloody revolution. When his father moves out, retreating into dishevelled introspection, Salim is confused and ashamed. His mother does not discuss the change.
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So enjoyed this!
- By S. Z. Sykes on 04-26-24
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Desertion
- A Novel
- By: Abdulrazak Gurnah
- Narrated by: Damian Lynch
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Writing at the peak of his powers, Abdulrazak Gurnah gives us in Desertion a spellbinding novel of forbidden love and cultural upheaval, with consequences powerfully reverberating through three generations and across continents—from the heyday of the British empire to the aftermath of African independence.
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Rich And Evocative Reading Experience!
- By Paul on 12-14-24
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At the Edge of the Orchard
- By: Tracy Chevalier
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber, Mark Bramhall, Kirby Heyborne, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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1838: James and Sadie Goodenough have settled where their wagon got stuck - in the muddy, stagnant swamps of northwest Ohio. They and their five children work relentlessly to tame their patch of land, buying saplings from a local tree man known as John Appleseed so they can cultivate the 50 apple trees required to stake their claim on the property. But the orchard they plant sows the seeds of a long battle. James loves the apples, reminders of an easier life back in Connecticut; while Sadie prefers the applejack they make, an alcoholic refuge from brutal frontier life.
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The performance was superb
- By cheryl retired bookseller on 05-30-17
By: Tracy Chevalier
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Cinema Love
- A Novel
- By: Jiaming Tang
- Narrated by: Samantha Tan
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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While classic war films played, Old Second and his countrymen found intimacy in the screening rooms. In the box office, Bao Mei sold movie tickets to closeted men, guarding their secrets and finding her own happiness with the projectionist. But when Old Second’s passion for his male lover is revealed, a series of haunting events unfold, propelling these characters toward an uncertain future in America.
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Inventive story elegant prose
- By C. FREEMAN on 06-27-25
By: Jiaming Tang
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Ex Libris
- 100+ Books to Read and Reread
- By: Michiko Kakutani
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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“Books can connect people across time zones and zip codes, across cultures, national boundaries, and historical eras”, Kakutani writes in her introduction to Ex Libris. Here listeners will discover novels and memoirs by some of the most gifted writers working today; favorite classics worth listening or relistening; and nonfiction works, both old and new, that illuminate our social and political landscape and some of today’s most pressing issues, from climate change to medicine to the consequences of digital innovation.
By: Michiko Kakutani
beautifully narrated
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Interesting
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East African pre-colonual history from the inside out
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Beautiful book
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