Tanzanian novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature for his uncompromising portrayal of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee, the award-giving body said Thursday.
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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 the prestigious literary award. His novels include Paradise – set in colonial East Africa during World War I and short-listed for the Booker Prize for Fiction – and Desertion.
"I dedicate this Nobel Prize to Africa and Africans and to all my readers. Thanks!" Gurnah tweeted after the announcement.
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 would unite with the mainland territory Tanganyika to form Tanzania. He was able to return only in 1984, seeing his father shortly before his death.
