Tanzanian novelist wins Noble Literature Prize

Tanzanian-born novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah has won the Nobel Literature Prize for his writings on post-colonialism and the trauma of the refugee experience. Gurnah, who grew up in Zanzibar but arrived in England as a refugee at the end of the 1960s, is the fifth African to win the Nobel Literature Prize. A report on the EWN site notes that the Swedish Academy said Gurnah 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.’ ‘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 told the Nobel Prize website that ‘I thought it was a prank … these things are usually floated for weeks beforehand’. He has published 10 novels and a number of short stories.

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Abdulrazak Gurnah profile

Full report on the EWN site