Exchange, bullies and abuse in Abdulrazak Gumah'sparadise

Abdulrazak Gurnah's novel, Paradise, takes the reader on a troubled journey through different regions and the realities of different ethnic identifications in early 20∗ century East Africa. As it does so, it deals abrasively with the operation of hierarchies and prejudice among the peoples represented, challenging the reader constantly to reconsider notions of both precolonial and postcolonial cultural interaction. Ultimately, Paradise itself is a notion which enters the exchange economy, a means to entertain and give false hope to those whose lives are fixed within this economy and for whom only stories offer a compromised realm of escape or hope.