Chitra Chaudhary

“We were strolling along the waterfront, his favourite walk, going nowhere in particular, the postcolonial condition.”
― Abdulrazak Gurnah, Admiring Silence

“But I am so afraid of disturbing this fragile silence.”
― Abdulrazak Gurnah, Admiring Silence

“In no time at all after I moved, I was overcome by the enormity of my abandonment, like someone weeping in a crowd.

I was astonished by the sudden surge of loneliness and terror I felt when I realized how stranded I was in this hostile place, that I did not know how to speak to people and win them over to me,that the bank, the canteen, the supermarket, the dark streets seemed so intimidating, and that I could not return from where I came – that, as I then thought, I had lost everything. Then Emma came and filled my life. I can’t describe that.”
― Abdulrazak Gurnah, Admiring Silence

“I am a refugee, an asylum-seeker. These are not simple words, even if habit of hearing them makes them seem so.”
― Abdulrazak Gurnah, By the Sea