A Study Of Power Relations In Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Paradise

Paradise(1994)is the fourth novel by Abdulrazak Gurnah,the winner of the2021 Nobel Prize in literature.From the perspective of an East African teenager,the novel tells the growth and identity search of individuals in the context of social turmoil and historical changes,revealing the complex and subtle operation of power in the East African world.Based on the theory of power,this paper explores the embodiment of power relations in the family,the trading safaris,and European colonization in East Africa through the interpretation of the life experience of the protagonist Yusuf after being sold to a wealthy merchant as a salve and the social environment in East Africa.The traditional family model was heavily influenced by Islamism,the trading safaris had a time-honored tradition,and East Africa underwent social upheavals during the process of colonization.From interpersonal relationships,family relationships,and social group relations,to political and economic relations,and state power relations,all of them are reflected in Paradise.Power is suppression,but also resistance,circulating between different individuals.Power operation includes struggle and negotiation,the individual seeking freedom in repressive societies,and nations seeking balance in an out-of-order world system.Power represents not only repression but also resistance.In Paradise,Gurnah focuses more on the growth of “little people”,the choices of the oppressed,and the dynamic balance of their native societies.Gurnah made a profound reflection on colonization,avoiding discussing the direct colonization of East Africa by European suzerains,trying to break the binary opposition between colonizers and the colonized,and critically examining the division of colonial space,which transcends the connotation of postcolonialism and has a more cosmopolitan meaning.