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Abdulrazak Gurnah

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Abdulrazak Gurnah

FRSL
Gurnah in January 2023
Gurnah in January 2023
Born(1948-12-20)20 December 1948(age 75)
Sultanate of Zanzibar
OccupationNovelist, professor
LanguageEnglish
EducationCanterbury Christ Church University(BA)
University of Kent(MA,PhD)
Notable works
Notable awardsNobel Prize in Literature(2021)
Website
rcwlitagency

Abdulrazak GurnahFRSL(born 20 December 1948) is a Tanzanian-born British novelist and academic. He was born in theSultanate of Zanzibarand moved to the United Kingdom in the 1960s as a refugee during theZanzibar Revolution.[1]His novels includeParadise(1994), which was shortlisted for both theBookerand theWhitbread Prize;By the Sea(2001), which was longlisted for the Booker and shortlisted for theLos Angeles TimesBook Prize;andDesertion(2005), shortlisted for theCommonwealth Writers' Prize.

Gurnah was awarded the2021 Nobel Prize in Literature"for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fates of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents".[1][2][3]He is Emeritus Professor of English and Postcolonial Literatures at theUniversity of Kent.[4]

Early life and education[edit]

Abdulrazak Gurnah was born on 20 December 1948[5]in theSultanate of Zanzibar.[6]He left the island, which later became part ofTanzania,at the age of 18 following the overthrow of the ruling Arab elite in theZanzibar Revolution,[3][1]arriving in England in 1968 as a refugee. He is ofArabheritage,[7]and his father and uncle were businessmen who had immigrated fromYemen.[8]Gurnah has been quoted saying, "I came to England when these words, such as asylum-seeker, were not quite the same – more people are struggling and running from terror states."[1][9]

He initially studied atChrist Church College, Canterbury,whose degrees were at the time awarded by theUniversity of London.[10]He then moved to theUniversity of Kent,where he earned hisPhDwith a thesis titledCriteria in the Criticism of West African Fiction,[11]in 1982.[6]

Career[edit]

Academia[edit]

From 1980 to 1983, Gurnah lectured atBayero University KanoinNigeria.He then became a professor of English andpostcolonial literatureat the University of Kent, where he taught until his retirement[3][12]in 2017. As of 2021he is professor emeritus of English and postcolonial literatures at the university.[13]

Fiction[edit]

Alongside his work in academia, Gurnah is a creative writer and novelist. He is the author of many short stories, essays and novels.[14]He began writing out of homesickness in his 20s. He started with writing down thoughts in his diary, which turned into longer reflections about home, and eventually grew into writing fictional stories about other people. This created a habit of using writing as a tool to understand and record his experience of being a refugee, living in another land and the feeling of being displaced. These initial stories eventually became Gurnah's first novel,Memory of Departure(1987), which he wrote alongside his Ph.D. dissertation. This first book set the stage for his ongoing exploration of the themes of "the lingering trauma of colonialism, war and displacement" throughout his subsequent novels, short stories and critical essays.[12]

Although Gurnah's novels were received positively by critics, they were not commercially successful and, in some cases, were not published outside the United Kingdom.[15]After he was awarded theNobel Prize for Literaturein 2021, publishers and booksellers struggled to keep up with the increase in demand for his work.[15][16]It was not until after the Nobel announcement that Gurnah received bids from American publishers for his novelAfterlives,withRiverhead Bookspublishing it in August 2022.[17]Riverhead also acquired rights toBy the SeaandDesertion,two Gurnah works that had gone out of print.[16]

While his first language isSwahili,he has used English as his literary language.[18]However, Gurnah integrates bits of Swahili, Arabic and German into most of his writings. He has said that he had to push back against publishers to continue this practice and they would have preferred to "italicize orAngliciseSwahili and Arabic references and phrases in his books ".[12]Gurnah has criticised the practices in both British and American publishing that want to "make the alien seem alien" by marking "foreign" terms and phrases with italics or by putting them in a glossary.[12]As academicHamid Dabashinotes, Gurnah "is integral to the manner in which Asian and African migratory and diasporic experiences have enriched and altered English language and literature.... Calling authors like Gurnah diasporic, exilic, or any other such self-alienating term conceals the fact that English was native to him even before he set foot in England. English colonial officers had brought it home to him."[19]

Consistent themes run through Gurnah's writing, including exile, displacement, belonging, colonialism and broken promises by the state. Most of his novels tell stories about people living in the developing world, affected by war or crisis, who may not be able to tell their own stories.[20][21]Much of Gurnah's work is set on the coast ofEast Africa[22]and many of his novels'protagonistswere born in Zanzibar.[23]Though Gurnah has not returned to live in Tanzania since he left at 18, he has said that his homeland "always asserts himself in his imagination, even when he deliberately tries to set his stories elsewhere."[12]

Literary critic Bruce King posits that Gurnah's novels place East African protagonists in their broader international context, observing that in Gurnah's fiction "Africans have always been part of the larger, changing world".[24]According to King, Gurnah's characters are often uprooted, alienated, unwanted and therefore are, or feel, resentful victims ".[24]Felicity Hand suggests that Gurnah's novelsAdmiring Silence(1996),By the Sea(2001) andDesertion(2005) all concern "the alienation and loneliness that emigration can produce and the soul-searching questions it gives rise to about fragmented identities and the very meaning of 'home'."[25]She observes that Gurnah's characters typically do not succeed abroad following their migration, using irony and humour to respond to their situation.[26]

NovelistMaaza Mengistehas described Gurnah's works by saying: "He has written work that is absolutely unflinching and yet at the same time completely compassionate and full of heart for people of East Africa. [...] He is writing stories that are often quiet stories of people who aren't heard, but there's an insistence there that we listen."[12]

Aiming to build the readership for Gurnah's writing in Tanzania, the first translator of his novels into Swahili, academic Dr Ida Hadjivayanis of theSchool of Oriental and African Studies,has said: "I think if his work could be read in East Africa it would have such an impact.... We can't change our reading culture overnight, so for him to be read the first steps would be to includeParadiseandAfterlivesin the school curriculum. "[27]

Other writing[edit]

Gurnah edited three and a half volumes ofEssays on African Writingand has published articles on a number of contemporary postcolonial writers, includingV. S. Naipaul,Salman Rushdie,andZoë Wicomb.He is the editor ofA Companion to Salman Rushdie(Cambridge University Press,2007). From 1987 he has been a contributing editor ofWasafiriand as of 2021is on the magazine's advisory board.[28][29]

Other activities[edit]

He has been a judge for literary awards, including theCaine Prize for African Writing,[30]theBooker Prize,[31]and theRSL Literature Matters Awards.[32]

Awards and honours[edit]

Gurnah's 1994 novelParadisewas shortlisted for theBooker,theWhitbreadand theWriters' GuildPrizes as well as the ALOA Prize for the best Danish translation.[33]His novelBy the Sea(2001) was longlisted for the Booker and shortlisted for theLos Angeles TimesBook Prize,[33]whileDesertion(2005) was shortlisted for the 2006Commonwealth Writers' Prize.[33][34]

In 2006 Gurnah was elected a fellow of theRoyal Society of Literature.[35]In 2007 he won theRFITémoin du Monde (Witness of the World) award in France forBy the Sea.[36]

On 7October 2021 he was awarded theNobel Prize in Literaturefor 2021 "for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects ofcolonialismand the fates of therefugeein the gulf between cultures and continents ".[2][3][1]Gurnah was the first Black writer to receive the prize since 1993, whenToni Morrisonwon it,[3][16]and the first African writer since 1991, whenNadine Gordimerwas the recipient.[12][37]

Personal life[edit]

As of 2021Gurnah lives inCanterbury,Kent, England,[38]and he 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 Guyanese-born scholar of literatureDenise de Caires Narain.[41][42][43][44]

Writings[edit]

Novels[edit]

Short stories[edit]

  • "Cages" (1984), inAfrican Short Stories,edited byChinua AchebeandCatherine Lynette Innes,Heinemann Educational Books.ISBN9780435902704
  • "Bossy" (1994), inAfrican Rhapsody: Short Stories of the Contemporary African Experience,edited by Nadežda Obradović.Anchor Books.ISBN9780385468169
  • "Escort" (1996), inWasafiri,vol. 11, no. 23, 44–48.doi:10.1080/02690059608589487
  • "The Photograph of the Prince" (2012), inRoad Stories: New Writing Inspired by Exhibition Road,edited by Mary Morris.Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea,London.ISBN9780954984847
  • "My Mother Lived on a Farm in Africa" (2006), inNW 14: The Anthology of New Writing,Volume 14, selected byLavinia GreenlawandHelon Habila,London:Granta Books[60]
  • "The Arriver's Tale", inRefugee Tales,edited by David Herd and Anna Pincus (Comma Press,2016,ISBN9781910974230)[61]
  • "The Stateless Person's Tale", inRefugee Tales III,edited by David Herd and Anna Pincus (Comma Press, 2019,ISBN9781912697113)[62]

Non-fiction: essays and criticism[edit]

As editor[edit]

References[edit]

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  2. ^ab"The Nobel Prize in Literature 2021".NobelPrize.org.7 October 2021.Archivedfrom the original on 7 October 2021.Retrieved7 October2021.
  3. ^abcdeFlood, Alison (7 October 2021)."Abdulrazak Gurnah wins the 2021 Nobel prize in literature".The Guardian.Archivedfrom the original on 7 October 2021.Retrieved7 October2021.
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  5. ^Loimeier, Manfred (30 August 2016). "Gurnah, Abdulrazak". In Ruckaberle, Axel (ed.).Metzler Lexikon Weltliteratur: Band 2: G–M(in German). Springer. pp. 82–83.ISBN978-3-476-00129-0.Archivedfrom the original on 7 October 2021.Retrieved7 October2021.
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Sources[edit]

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

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