Tanzanian novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah won the 2021 Nobel Prize in literature for his uncompromising & compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugees in the gulf between cultures and continents.
The 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature was presented by Mats Malm, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy.
The Nobel prize in Medicine/Physiology, Physics and Chemistry have already been announced.
Who is Abdulrazak Gurnah?
Abdulrazak Gurnah was born in 1948 and grew up on the island of Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean but arrived in England as a refugee in the end of the 1960’s.
After the peaceful liberation from British colonial rule in December 1963 Zanzibar went through a revolution which, under President Abeid Karume’s regime, led to oppression and persecution of citizens of Arab origin; massacres occurred.
Gurnah belonged to the victimised ethnic group and after finishing school was forced to leave his family and flee the country, by then the newly formed Republic of Tanzania.
Gurnah has until his recent retirement been Professor of English and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Kent in Canterbury.
Gurnah’s Work
Gurnah has published ten novels and a number of short stories. His books include Pilgrims Way (1988), Paradise (1994), Desertion (2005) shortlisted for a 2006 Commonwealth Writers Prize, The Last Gift (2011) and Afterlives (2020).
The theme of the refugee’s disruption runs throughout his work. He published his debut novel titled “Memory of Departure” in 1987.
He gained fame for his work ‘Paradise’ which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in the fiction category. The plot of this book was set in colonial East Africa during the First World War.
He began writing as a 21-year-old in English exile, and even though Swahili was his first language, English became his literary tool.
Arabic and Persian poetry, especially The Arabian Nights, were an early and significant wellspring for him.
He consciously breaks with convention, upending the colonial perspective to highlight that of the indigenous populations.
Thus, his novel Desertion (2005) about a love affair becomes a blunt contradiction to what he has called “the imperial romance”.
Gurnah’s novels recoil from stereotypical descriptions and open our gaze to a culturally diversified East Africa unfamiliar to many in other parts of the world.
In Gurnah’s literary universe, everything is shifting – memories, names, identities. This is probably because his project cannot reach completion in any definitive sense.
Prize
The 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature consists of a gold medal and a cash prize of 10 million Swedish Kronor (around Rs 8.5 crores).
Nobel Prize in Literature 2020
The 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature was presented to American poet Louise Glück for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.
About Nobel Prize in Literature
The academy said that Alfred Nobel had broad cultural interests. During his early youth, he developed his literary interests, which lasted throughout his life. His library consisted of a rich and broad selection of literature in different languages.
During the last years of his life, he tried his hand as an author and began writing fiction. Literature was the fourth prize area Nobel mentioned in his will.
So far, 117 people have been recognised for their literary creations by the Academy, of which 16 are women.
Rudyard Kipling (41 years) was the youngest to win this award. He is best known for ‘The Jungle Book’.
At the same time, Doris Lessing (88 years) is the oldest winner to win this award.
Indian Literature Prize Winner
Rabindranath Tagore is the only Indian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 for his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful poetry. He was also the first non-European literature laureate.
Facts about Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prize can be shared by up to 3 individuals and in the case of the Nobel Peace Prize, it can also be awarded to an organisation.
Since 1974, the Prize cannot be awarded posthumously, if the recipient dies after the announcement of the prize, the prize can still be awarded to them.
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