Abdulrazak Gurnah wins 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature: Here's how famous writers reacted

Novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah was awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature on October 7 "for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents", announced the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Gurnah is famous for his novels and a number of short stories that are themed around the refugee’s disruption. Although Gurnah has Swahili as his first language, he used English as a tool as he began writing as a 21-year-old refugee in English. He was an African refugee and travelled to the UK in the 1960s. He was also a professor at the University of Kent.

How did the Nobel Committee inform Gurnah and how did he react?

Gurnah’s Paradise, which was published in 1994, is widely considered to be his best work as it is a story of a boy who grew up in Tanzania in the early 20th Century and was nominated for the Booker Prize. Gurnah belongs to one of the islands of Zanzibar, but he had to leave his birthland to avoid being persecuted and came to England as a refugee in the 1960s. During his writing career, Gurnah has published a total of 10 novels along with multiple short stories. The Nobel Committee for Literature said that Abdulrazak Gurnah's striking features were his dedication to truth and his aversion to simplification.

They further said, “His novels recoil from stereotypical descriptions and open our gaze to a culturally diversified East Africa unfamiliar to many in other parts of the world." Anders Olsson, chair of the Nobel committee, said while talking to the Guardian that Gurnah was in the kitchen when they informed him of the award and that the author had a very long and positive conversation with the Nobel Committee. Anders Olsson further said that his stories break the stereotypes that people have in mind regarding the East African culture and introduce readers to the diverse culture of the region. Since the award was won by Wole Soyinka in 1986, Gurnah is the first black writer to win the award. He is also the first-ever Tanzanian writer to win the prestigious award.

How did others react to the award?