Paradise: A BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime, by the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021

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Sveriges Television AB, Nobel 2021: Porträtten – Litteraturprisporträttet (in Swedish) , retrieved 9 December 2021 Mid Morning Moon". In: Wasafiri (3 May 2011), vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 25–29. doi: 10.1080/02690055.2011.557532. I thought it was a prank,” he said. “These things are usually floated for weeks beforehand, or sometimes months beforehand, about who are the runners, so it was not something that was in my mind at all. I was just thinking, I wonder who’ll get it?” a b Alter, Alexandra (27 October 2021). "He Won the Nobel. Why Are His Books So Hard to Find?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 27 October 2021.

a b c d e f g Alter, Alexandra; Marshall, Alex (7 October 2021). "Abdulrazak Gurnah Is Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 7 October 2021 . Retrieved 9 October 2021. Prono, Luca (2005). "Abdulrazak Gurnah – Literature". British Council. Archived from the original on 3 August 2019 . Retrieved 7 October 2021. Although Gurnah’s first language was Swahili, he wrote in English. He drew from a wide array of literary traditions, such as the surahs of the Qurʾān, Arabic and Persian poetry, and Shakespeare. Central to much of his writing were the themes of the long-reaching and destructive impact of colonialism and the upheaval experienced by immigrants and refugees. When Gurnah was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2021, the prize committee cited “his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.” I am honoured 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.”Mengiste, Maaza (30 September 2020). "Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah review – living through colonialism". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 14 September 2021 . Retrieved 7 October 2021. a b c d "Abdulrazak Gurnah: Influencing policymakers, cultural providers, curricula, and the reading public worldwide via new imaginings of empire and postcoloniality". REF 2014 | Impact Case Studies . Retrieved 14 October 2021. Olaussen, Maria (May 2013). "The Submerged History of the Indian Ocean in Admiring Silence". English Studies in Africa. 56 (1): 65–77. doi: 10.1080/00138398.2013.780682. ISSN 0013-8398. S2CID 162203810. Gurnah’s fourth novel, Paradise, was shortlisted for the Booker prize in 1994, and his sixth, By the Sea, was longlisted in 2001. Olsson said that Paradise “has obvious reference to Joseph Conrad in its portrayal of the innocent young hero Yusuf’s journey to the heart of darkness”. The Arriver's Tale", in Refugee Tales, edited by David Herd and Anna Pincus ( Comma Press, 2016, ISBN 9781910974230) [61]

a b "Nobel Prize in Literature 2021: Abdulrazak Gurnah honoured". The Irish Times. 7 October 2021. Archived from the original on 7 October 2021 . Retrieved 7 October 2021.

On the self-image of the refugee

Pilling, David (8 October 2021). "Abdulrazak Gurnah, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature". Financial Times. Abdulrazak Gurnah Wins the Nobel Prize for Literature". Wasafiri. 8 October 2021 . Retrieved 31 October 2021. Bosman, Sean James (26 August 2021). "Abdulrazak Gurnah". Rejection of Victimhood in Literature by Abdulrazak Gurnah, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and Luis Alberto Urrea. Brill. pp.36–72. doi: 10.1163/9789004469006_003. ISBN 978-90-04-46900-6. S2CID 241357989. Awami, Sammy (9 October 2021). "In Tanzania, Gurnah's Nobel Prize win sparks both joy and debate". Al Jazeera . Retrieved 10 October 2021.

Refugee Tales – Comma Press". commapress.co.uk. Archived from the original on 28 May 2021 . Retrieved 7 October 2021. Lall, Rashmee Roshan (31 October 2021). "Abdulrazak Gurnah: the truth-teller's tale". openDemocracy . Retrieved 31 October 2021. One of my favourites is Gurnah’s latest novel ‘Afterlives’ (2020), which has many affinities with his fourth, breakthrough novel, ‘Paradise’ (1994), and takes place during the German colonisation of East Africa in the beginning of the 20th century and thereafter. In both cases Gurnah gives us a lucid history lesson in the form of a captivating story of individual lives. His way of doing this is to filter the brutality of events through young and vulnerable protagonists with limited consciousness of reality. In the breaking up of Arab hegemony in the coastal region of East Africa we follow the dramatic fates of the orphaned youngsters Ilyas, Afiya and Hamza. Ilyas escapes his servitude under an Arab slave holder only to be kidnapped by the German forces as one of their native soldiers (askaris). Even Hamza is owned by a merchant in a caravan only to volunteer as a German askari, where he becomes dependent on an officer who sexually exploits him. The capricious winds of history rule, and the fates of the trio are very different. Gurnah’s style is wonderfully clear and nuanced, but he can also be sarcastic and hilarious in a deadpan way. One of the finest moments in this novel is the delicately written love story of Hamza and Ilyas’ sister Afyia, a variation on Pyramus and Thisbe. The last word however must be terrible, when the Nazi engagement of Ilyas is revealed, and the denouement of ‘Afterlives’ is just as unexpected as it is alarming. If Hamza is saved, Ilyas is not. What happens to him I will let the reader find out.

Goodreads Reviews

a b Kohler, Sophy (4 May 2017). " 'The spice of life': trade, storytelling and movement in Paradise and By the Sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah". Social Dynamics. 43 (2): 274–285. doi: 10.1080/02533952.2017.1364471. ISSN 0253-3952. S2CID 149236009. Jones, Nisha (2005). "Abdulrazak Gurnah in conversation". Wasafiri, 20:46, 37–42. doi: 10.1080/02690050508589982. Abdulrazak Gurnah on being appointed as Man Booker Prize judge". University of Kent. 26 October 2016 . Retrieved 7 October 2021. a b c d e "Nobel Literature Prize 2021: Abdulrazak Gurnah named winner". BBC News. 7 October 2021. Archived from the original on 7 October 2021 . Retrieved 9 October 2021.

The Photograph of the Prince" (2012), in Road Stories: New Writing Inspired by Exhibition Road, edited by Mary Morris. Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, London. ISBN 9780954984847 Gurnah lives in Canterbury [38] and has British citizenship. [39] He maintains close ties with Tanzania, where he still has family and where he says he goes when he can: "I am from there. In my mind I live there." [40] He is married to the Guyanese-born scholar of literature, Denise de Caires Narain. [41] [42] [43] [44] Writings [ edit ] Novels [ edit ] Pringle said Gurnah is as important a writer as Chinua Achebe. “His writing is particularly beautiful and grave and also humorous and kind and sensitive. He’s an extraordinary writer writing about really important things.” It’s not always asylum seeking, it can be so many reasons, it can be trade, it can be commerce, it can be education, it can be love,” she said. “The first of his novels I took on at Bloomsbury is called By the Sea, and there’s this haunting image of a man at Heathrow airport with a carved incense box, and that’s all he has. He arrives, and he says one word, and that’s ‘asylum’.” Gurnah, who was in the kitchen when he was informed of his win, said that he believed it was a wind-up.Lavery, Charné (May 2013). "White-washed Minarets and Slimy Gutters: Abdulrazak Gurnah, Narrative Form and Indian Ocean Space". English Studies in Africa. 56 (1): 117–127. doi: 10.1080/00138398.2013.780686. ISSN 0013-8398. S2CID 143927840. In recent years, as a series of humanitarian crises has forced desperate people to risk their lives in the hope for greater stability and a better future in Europe, Gurnah’s work has gained greater resonance and importance. In a 2001 essay in the Guardian, he wrote: “The debate over asylum is twinned with a paranoid narrative of race, disguised and smuggled in as euphemisms about foreign lands and cultural integrity.” AbdulrazakGurnah (born 1948, Zanzibar (now in Tanzania)) Tanzanian-born British author known for his novels about the effects of colonialism, the refugee experience, and displacement in the world. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021. Palmisano, Joseph M., ed. (2007). "Gurnah, Abdulrazak S.". Contemporary Authors. Vol.153. Gale. pp. 134–136. ISBN 978-1-4144-1017-3. ISSN 0275-7176. OCLC 507351992.