Life
Tanzanian novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah wins 2021 Nobel Prize in literature
Reuters | The novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah won the Nobel Prize in literature Thursday.
Gurnah was born on the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar.
His work focuses on the experience and identity of refugees.
The Swedish Academy, which choses the winners, said it had chosen Gurnah “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.”
As well as the international recognition, Gurnah will receive a gold medal and 10 million Swedish kronor (more than US$1.14 million). The money comes from the estate of the prize’s founder, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who died in 1895.
BREAKING NEWS:
The 2021 #NobelPrize in Literature is awarded to the novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.” pic.twitter.com/zw2LBQSJ4j— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 7, 2021
Until his recent retirement, Gurnah was Professor of English and postcolonial literatures at the University of Kent, in the U.K. In 1994, his novel “Paradise” was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.