Posted Sunday night, November 29, 2020.
Illustration by Clifford Harper (agraphia.co.uk) for a review of Zia Haider Rahman’s novel “In the Light of What We Know” in the Guardian.
The narrator of Zia Haider Rahman's novel "In the Light of What We Know", having failed as a friend, reckons with the burden of guilt he counts as the cost of friendship...
My lasting regret is that I made my excuses and did not go with [Zafar and his parents] to Headington for breakfast. At the time, and immediately afterward, I told myself that I had sensed in his heart my friend did not want me to. But the truth is that I myself, to my own shame, felt embarrassed for my friend. Sharper still was the disconcerting feeling I had in those few minutes that a distance had opened up between him and me for reasons I did not grasp in the full subtleties. After that day, Zafar did not mention his parents again. If friendship has a cost, then perhaps it is that at its heart there is always a burden of guilt. I don’t deny that I’ve failed to do certain things, failed, for instance, to provide support in the hour of need, or skype in when that’s what a friend should o, failed as a friend…
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