The eleventh novel of Tanzanian-born, British-domiciled writer Abdulrazak Gumah, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature four years ago, Theft is a sashaying coming-of-age story set in the aftermath of the African revolution that created Tanzania in the 1960s, a revolution that we barely glimpse as backdrop. Actually, we witness three children become teenagers, then adults: handsome and clever Karim, abandoned (initially at least) by his mother, who ends up shuttling between birthplace island Zanzibar and the nation’s capital, Dar es Salaam; Fauzia, an intelligent but anxious girl who falls for Karim; and, as the fulcrum of the novel, Badar, a destitute servant boy who ends up under Karim’s wing. The intertwined dramas of these three, woven around complicated family stories, contain plenty of narrative meat for a rousing literary melodrama, and the African backdrop with its various milieus is fascinating, but the novel is somehow leached of drama. Perhaps it’s the author’s easygoing storytelling style, which makes for quick reading, that dials down Theft, but the end result is an intriguing read that never ignites.
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