Nobel Literature Prize goes to novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah
- The Tanzanian-born writer was honoured ‘for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee’
- Gurnah, the author of 10 novels, said it was just wonderful to win the prize
Tanzanian-born novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah, whose work touches on colonialism and refugee life, on Thursday won the Nobel Literature Prize, the Swedish Academy said.
Gurnah, who grew up on the island of Zanzibar but came to England as a refugee at the end of the 1960s, was honoured “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents,” the Swedish Academy said.
“His novels recoil from stereotypical descriptions and open our gaze to a culturally diversified East Africa unfamiliar to many in other parts of the world,” the Nobel Foundation added.
Gurnah has published 10 novels and a number of short stories. He is the fifth African to win the Nobel Literature Prize.
It was such a complete surprise that I really had to wait until I heard it announced before I could believe it
He is best known for his 1994 novel Paradise, set in colonial East Africa during the first world war, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction. The theme of the refugee’s disruption runs throughout his work.