Rabat – Tanzanian novelist, Abdulrazak Gurnah, was named winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming the first black African writer in 35 years to win the prestigious award.
The Swedish Academy applauded the writer 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 73-year-old author has written 10 novels over 33 years, his first being “Memory of Departure” in 1987, and his latest being “Afterlives,” which was published in 2020.
The novel that won him the $1.14 million prize is “Paradise,” a historical piece published in 1994, which tells the story of a boy in a fictional town in Tanzania at the turn of the 20th century.
The written masterpiece is known for challenging the dominant Western stereotypes of East African countries. “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,” said the Nobel Committee for Literature in a statement.
Gurnah was born and raised in Zanzibar, Tanzania There, he spent the first 18 years of his life. In 1964, he was forced to flee the country due to the persecution of citizens of Arab origin during the revolution. He later worked as a Professor of English and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Kent, Canterbury until his recent retirement.
“I am honored to be awarded this prize and to join the writers who have preceded me on this list. It is overwhelming and I am so proud,” said Abdulrazak Gurnah.
Anders Olsson, chair of the Nobel committee, praised the Zanzibari novelist, stating that “an unending exploration driven by intellectual passion is present in all his books, and equally prominent now, in Afterlives, as when he began writing as a 21-year-old refugee.”
His editor, Alexandra Pringle, said Gurnah’s win was “most deserved” for a writer who has not previously received due recognition.
Last year’s Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the American poet and essayist, Louise Glück.
The Swedish awards began in 1901, and every October declare the annual winners in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, peace, and economics.
