The Nobel Prize In Literature 2021 Awarded To African Novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah

The first long-awaited literary prize, one of the most prestigious this autumn, was announced today. The Nobel Prize in Literature 2021 was awarded to Abdulrazak Gurnah.

The African writer, born in Zanzibar in 1948 and now active in England, was honored "for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents."*

Abdulrazak Gurnah is the first black African writer to win the Nobel Prize in 35 years when Toni Morrison won the Prize in 1993. The novelist has published 10 novels, including Paradise, By The Sea, and Afterlives.

Last year the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the American poet Louise Glück.

*The Nobel Prize in Literature 2021. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2021. Thu. 7 Oct 2021. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2021/summary/>