Abdulrazak Gurnah Wins Nobel Prize in Literature 2021

The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah for his writing on the effects of colonialism and the fate of refugees.

Gurnah, whose novels include "Paradise" and "Desertion", writes in English and lives in Britain. The prize is awarded by the Swedish Academy and is worth 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.14 million).

The Swedish Academy said Gurnah was honored for “his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fates of the refugee in the gulf between culture and continents.”

He has played a major role in developing the study of postcolonial literature and his work continues to inspire students and colleagues

Abdulrazak Gurnah was born on 20 December 1948 in Zanzibar. He is a Tanzanian novelist. The most famous of his novels are Paradise (1994), which was shortlisted for both the Booker and the Whitbread Prize, Desertion (2005), and By the Sea (2001), which was longlisted for the Booker and shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Award.

The prizes, for achievements in science, literature, and peace, were created through a bequest in the will of Swedish dynamite inventor and wealthy businessman Alfred Nobel. They have been awarded since 1901, with the final prize in the line-up - economics - a later addition.

Past winners have primarily been novelists such as Ernest Hemingway, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Toni Morrison, poets such as Pablo Neruda, Joseph Brodsky, and Rabindranath Tagore, or playwrights such as Harold Pinter and Eugene O'Neill.