Krádež – Gurnah Abdulrazak (2026)

In his latest novel, the first since receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2021, Abdulrazak Gurnah presents a subtle story about coming of age, guilt, desire and the search for identity in a world marked by a colonial past. With empathy and narrative assurance, he follows three main characters whose lives intersect in circumstances where personal decisions are never entirely separate from wider historical and social influences. Gurnah patiently and sensitively explores their relationships, gradually revealing hidden motives, disappointments and hopes. Theft is both an intimate coming-of-age story and a broad portrayal of a postcolonial reality in which the past continually returns to shape the present. In a tense and cathartic conclusion, the separate storylines come together in a surprising yet inevitable resolution. The novel’s power lies in its ability to awaken understanding, quietly and persistently encouraging us to judge less and understand others and ourselves more. Theft marks the author’s return to his native Tanzania and continues the themes that define his work, including identity, displacement, social inequality and the relationship between Africa and Europe in a globalised world. The book is in Czech.