By the Sea

Saleh Omar is the protagonist and one of the novel’s two narrators. A 65-year-old man seeking asylum in Britain, he is a round and dynamic character whose identity is revealed through a slow, often misleading, process of memory and storytelling. He arrives at Gatwick Airport under the borrowed name Rajab Shaaban, a strategic deception that immediately establishes him as both a survivor and an unreliable narrator. His initial interactions with the British asylum system are marked by a feigned inability to speak English, which forces officials like Kevin Edelman to project their own biases onto him while allowing Saleh to retain a small measure of control amid The Dehumanizing Process of Seeking Asylum. His choice to finally speak is also a calculated one, prompted by the need to escape the squalid indignities of Celia’s bed-and-breakfast. This strategic use of storytelling is central to his character, illustrating how narrative becomes a tool for surviving a system designed to reduce his complex life to a simple case file.

Saleh’s past is a landscape of trauma, betrayal, and loss, which he reconstructs through fragmented and often contradictory memories. As a successful