Paradise, Paperback/Abdulrazak Gurnah

A finalist for the 1994 Booker Prize, England s highest honor for works of fiction, "Paradise" is at once the story 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 the complexities of precolonial 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 a page-turning saga that offers a unique perspective on a seldom-chronicled part of the world. "