Abdulrazak Gurnah, a Tanzanian writer based in Britain has won the Nobel prize in Literature for 2021. Gurnah was born in 1948 and grew up on the island of Zanzibar. He had arrived in England as a refugee at the end of the 1960’s. His life experiences shaped his abilities as a sensitive writer. He has an innate ability to write about self-image and identity. He is the first Black Winner since Toni Morrisson won Nobel Prize in 1993.
Gurnah has published 10 novels and several short stories revolving around the theme of refugees’ disruption. He had started penning down his thoughts at the tender age of 21. Gurnah’s fourth novel ‘Paradise’ (1994), has been his breakthrough novel which was based on a research trip to East Africa in the 1990’s. All his writings have focused on uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugees in the gulf between cultures and continents. “The thing that motivated the whole experience of writing for me was this idea of losing your place in the world,” he had said in an interview. The prestigious Nobel prize comes with a gold medal and 10 million Swedish Kronor.