By the Sea

Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

1. How did the dual-narrator structure affect your reading experience? Did you find yourself siding more with Saleh or Latif, and did that perspective shift as the novel progressed?

2. Gurnah often writes about exile and displacement. If you’ve read his other works, like Paradise (1994) or Afterlives (2020), how does By the Sea’s exploration of these themes compare? If this is your first Gurnah novel, how did his approach feel different from other stories about refugees you may have read?

3. What was the overall emotional impact of the novel’s contrast between the quiet, melancholic present in England and the turbulent past in Zanzibar? Did you find the ending hopeful? Why or why not?

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

1. What does “home” seem to mean to characters like Saleh and Latif, who have been displaced? How does their search for belonging resonate with your own understanding of what makes a place a home?

2. The novel explores how we construct stories about our own lives. Have you ever realized that a long-held memory or family story might not be the complete picture, as Latif does?

3. Saleh believes that furniture helps to ground us and prevent us from succumbing to chaos. Do you agree with this idea? What objects in your own life hold significant memories or connect you to your personal history?

4. Do you think it’s possible to truly escape one’s history and family, as Latif attempts to do by changing his name and cutting off contact? What does the novel ultimately suggest about this possibility?

5. The relationship between Saleh and Latif is built on the difficult act of listening to each other’s stories. What does their journey suggest about the power of listening as a path toward understanding or reconciliation?

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

1. How does understanding the historical context of the Zanzibar Revolution and the decline of the monsoon trade change your interpretation of the characters’ personal conflicts over property and inheritance?

2. Saleh’s experience with the UK asylum system is portrayed as deeply dehumanizing. What specific commentary do you think Gurnah is making about how Western countries process and perceive asylum seekers?

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

1. In what ways do the narrative shifts between perspectives reinforce the central theme of The Unreliability of Memory and Competing Narratives?

2. Silence is both a tool and a motif in the novel. How do Saleh and Latif use silence differently as a form of self-preservation, resistance, or avoidance?

3. Saleh draws his strategy of passive resistance partly from Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” If you’ve read this story, how does this literary allusion deepen your understanding of Saleh’s character and his choices?

4. Beyond physical property like houses and furniture, what intangible things do the characters inherit? How do legacies of shame, resentment, and grievance shape the lives of Saleh and Latif?

Encourage imaginative and creative connections to the book.

1. The novel ends with Saleh and Latif beginning a new life together in London. Imagine a scene that takes place a year after the novel’s conclusion. What might a typical day look like for them, and what new understanding might they have reached?

2. Both Saleh and Latif have lost precious objects that represent their pasts: the incense casket and the ebony table. If you were to design a “memory box” for either character to help them process their history, what five items would you include, and why?

3. If you were to write a short story from the perspective of a minor character like Saleh’s wife, Salha, or Latif’s German friend, Jan, what part of the main narrative would you focus on? What new insights might that perspective offer?