By the Sea

In By the Sea, Abdulrazak Gurnah explores the nature of personal history as a fluid and contested narrative rather than a fixed record. The novel’s structure, which is built around the fragmented and conflicting memories of Saleh Omar and Latif Mahmud, challenges the notion of a single objective truth, suggesting instead that understanding the past requires navigating multiple, often contradictory, stories. Through this lens, Gurnah demonstrates that memory is an active process of storytelling, constantly reshaped by trauma, guilt, and the need to make sense of one’s life.

The novel establishes the constructed nature of memory from the outset, with Saleh arriving in England equipped with a suitcase full of “paltry mementos of a life” (10). With the exception of the incense, however, these mementos are not his own; as he admits a moment later, the items he has chosen to bring are intended to convey a specific story. Though Saleh is, in this instance, aware of the “doctored” nature of that story, the episode symbolically frames what follows, highlighting how the act of remembering is inseparable from the present circumstances influencing the storyteller. In particular, it suggests that rewriting one’s past can be a means of survival, whether physical (as in Saleh’s pursuit of asylum) or psychological.