Latif Mahmud serves as the novel’s deuteragonist and second narrator, offering a critical counternarrative to Saleh Omar’s account. He is a round, dynamic character, an academic and poet living in London who embodies a different form of exile: one of intellectual assimilation but profound emotional detachment. He has consciously distanced himself from his past in Zanzibar, willfully forgetting the painful family dramas that shaped him: “I’d forgotten so much,” he admits, “Willfully, I suspect” (248). His profession as a literature professor is therefore ironic; he is an expert in analyzing the stories of others while having suppressed his own.

This intellectualization is a defense mechanism that helps manage the trauma of his family’s history of betrayal, shame, and loss. Latif’s identity is defined by the legacy of his family’s conflicts, a direct illustration of The Intergenerational Burdens of Betrayal and Inheritance. He is haunted by the memory of his father, Rajab Shaaban Mahmud, whom he views as a weak and pathetic figure, and his mother, Asha, whose flagrant affairs were a source of public shame. His relationship with his older brother, Hassan, was one of adoration, and Hassan’s abrupt departure with the Persian trader Hussein is a wound that has never healed. These experiences have left Latif cynical about family and intimacy, contributing to his isolated life in London. When he is called upon by a refugee organization to act as an interpreter for an elderly man from Zanzibar, he is resistant, dreading any contact with the “nativity” he has worked so hard to escape. The revelation that the man is Saleh Omar, using Latif’s own father’s name, forces Latif into a direct confrontation with the past he has spent a lifetime avoiding, as Latif views Saleh as the unambiguous villain of his childhood, the “assassin” who dispossessed his family—a perspective that hearing Saleh’s side of the story dramatically challenges.

Latif’s role is that of a foil to Saleh. Where Saleh’s memory is an active, albeit unreliable, force he must grapple with, Latif’s is a void he has deliberately cultivated. The process of listening to Saleh’s story forces him to reopen his own past, digging through layers of received narratives and forgotten events. This journey transforms him from a detached academic into an active participant in his own history as he learns that his own family shares responsibility for the tragedies that unfolded. His reconciliation with Saleh is not about forgiveness but about the shared acknowledgment of a painful, tangled history. Through this process, Latif moves from a state of willed ignorance to one of difficult knowledge, beginning to integrate the fragmented parts of his identity and, for the first time, truly accounting for his own story.

Hussein is the novel’s primary antagonist, a charismatic and manipulative Persian trader whose actions serve as the catalyst for the decades-long feud between the Omar and Mahmud families. As a character who exists only in the memories of Saleh and Latif, he remains a somewhat flat and static figure, yet his impact is immense. He embodies a worldly charm and sophistication that is seductive to the residents of the small, insular town in Zanzibar. Saleh describes his courtesy as “like a gift, like a kind of talent, an elaboration of forms and manners into something abstract and poetic” (22), but this polished exterior conceals a cruel and calculating nature. Hussein represents the disruptive power of an outsider who exploits the community’s internal tensions for his own amusement and gain.

Hussein’s defining traits are his duplicity and his casual destructiveness. He skillfully plays the part of a friend to both Saleh Omar and Rajab Shaaban Mahmud, only to betray them both. He persuades Rajab to secure a loan with his house as collateral, an agreement that is merely a tool for humiliation and control. Simultaneously, he convinces Saleh to lend him a large sum of money, using the agreement with Rajab as security, before disappearing, leaving Saleh to enforce the debt. His most profound betrayal is his grooming of Rajab’s adolescent son, Hassan, whom he spirits away from Zanzibar, shattering the Mahmud family. Hussein’s motivations appear to stem from a mixture of greed, boredom, and a gleeful, malicious desire to wreak havoc. He operates as a classic trickster figure, a charming agent of chaos whose actions expose the hidden weaknesses and desires of those he encounters, leaving a legacy of ruin that extends across generations.

Latif’s father, Rajab Shaaban Mahmud, is a tragic figure whose life is defined by shame and a desperate search for redemption. He is a dynamic character, though his development is depicted entirely through the memories of his son and Saleh. In his early life, he is defined by his sense of inadequacy, which manifests as alcohol addiction. His poor judgment leads him to accept a dubious business arrangement with Hussein, a decision that results in the loss of his family home and public humiliation. This event, compounded by his wife’s infidelity and his son’s departure, pushes him to abandon his former life and embrace a severe, all-consuming piety.

Rajab’s transformation into a religious ascetic is thus a complex response to his profound sense of failure. While it provides him with a new sense of purpose and a framework for his suffering, his son Latif perceives it as another form of weakness, an “impossible holiness” that is self-punishing and alienating. Rajab’s story is central to the theme of intergenerational inheritance; his initial failure creates a legacy of shame and dispossession that his son inherits. The ultimate irony of his life is that his name is adopted by his rival, Saleh, forever linking the two men in a shared history of loss.

Latif’s older brother, Hassan, is a pivotal character who exists in the narrative primarily as a cherished and painful memory. He represents lost innocence and the devastating consequences of betrayal. Described by Latif as a source of “love and reassurance” (100) and a charismatic, glowing youth, Hassan is an object of veneration for his younger brother and of predatory desire for older men, including Hussein. His seduction by and subsequent disappearance with Hussein is the central, unresolved tragedy of the Mahmud family. This act of abandonment leaves a permanent scar on Latif and contributes to the emotional collapse of his parents. Hassan’s return decades later as a wealthy and powerful man seeking to claim his inheritance and persecute Saleh transforms him from a figure of tragic victimhood into a willing participant in the cycle of vengeance, demonstrating how the wounds of the past can fester into cruelty.

Asha, Latif’s mother, is a complex and defiant woman who refuses to be defined by her husband’s weakness. As characterized by her son’s memories, she is beautiful, proud, and transgressive. Her affairs, particularly her long-term relationship with the powerful government minister, Abdalla Khalfan, are a source of deep shame for Latif but also represent her pragmatic refusal to accept a life of quiet degradation. After Saleh takes possession of the family’s house, Asha uses her political connections to enact a slow and methodical revenge. It is her influence that leads directly to Saleh’s arrest, the confiscation of his property, and his long imprisonment. While her actions are vindictive, they stem from a fierce, if misguided, sense of justice for the wrongs she believes her family has suffered. She embodies the novel’s exploration of how personal betrayals can escalate into devastating, politically charged conflicts.