Tanzanian novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah has won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature for what the Swedish Academy termed as “his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee.” The 73 year old author has written 10 novels, including Paradise and Desertion.
The Nobel Prize is awarded by the Swedish Academy and is worth 10 million Swedish crowns Ksh. 126 million ($1.14 million). The Nobel Prizes, which have been awarded since 1901, recognize achievement in literature, science, peace and latterly economics.
Based in Britain and writing in English, Gurnah joins Nigeria’s Wole Soyinka as the only two non-white writers from sub-Saharan Africa ever to win what is widely seen as the world’s most prestigious literary award.
Gurnah left Africa as a refugee in the 1960s amid the persecution of citizens of Arab origin on the Indian Ocean archipelago of Zanzibar, which later joined mainland Tanganyika to form Tanzania. He was able to return only in 1984, seeing his father shortly before his death.
His selection for the top honour in literature comes at a time of global tensions around migration, as millions of people flee violence and poverty in places such as Syria, Afghanistan and Central America. He also writes about people who are displaced by climate change, often taking tremendous risks during their passages.
Past winners have included novelists such as Ernest Hemingway, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Toni Morrison, poets such as Pablo Neruda, Joseph Brodsky and Rabindranath Tagore, and playwrights including Harold Pinter and Eugene O’Neill. Last year’s award was won by American poet Louise Gluck.
Commenting on his win, Gurnah said, “It is just great, its just a big prize, and such a huge list of wonderful writers. I am still taking it in. It was such a complete surprise that I really had to wait until I heard it announced before I could believe it.”