The Photograph of the Prince" (2012), in Road Stories: New Writing Inspired by Exhibition Road, edited by Mary Morris. Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, London. ISBN 9780954984847 Awami, Sammy (9 October 2021). "In Tanzania, Gurnah's Nobel Prize win sparks both joy and debate". Al Jazeera . Retrieved 10 October 2021. 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] One of my favourites is Gurnah’s latest novel ‘Afterlives’ (2020), which has many affinities with his fourth, breakthrough novel, ‘Paradise’ (1994), and takes place during the German colonisation of East Africa in the beginning of the 20th century and thereafter. In both cases Gurnah gives us a lucid history lesson in the form of a captivating story of individual lives. His way of doing this is to filter the brutality of events through young and vulnerable protagonists with limited consciousness of reality. In the breaking up of Arab hegemony in the coastal region of East Africa we follow the dramatic fates of the orphaned youngsters Ilyas, Afiya and Hamza. Ilyas escapes his servitude under an Arab slave holder only to be kidnapped by the German forces as one of their native soldiers (askaris). Even Hamza is owned by a merchant in a caravan only to volunteer as a German askari, where he becomes dependent on an officer who sexually exploits him. The capricious winds of history rule, and the fates of the trio are very different. Gurnah’s style is wonderfully clear and nuanced, but he can also be sarcastic and hilarious in a deadpan way. One of the finest moments in this novel is the delicately written love story of Hamza and Ilyas’ sister Afyia, a variation on Pyramus and Thisbe. The last word however must be terrible, when the Nazi engagement of Ilyas is revealed, and the denouement of ‘Afterlives’ is just as unexpected as it is alarming. If Hamza is saved, Ilyas is not. What happens to him I will let the reader find out.

In recent years, as a series of humanitarian crises has forced desperate people to risk their lives in the hope for greater stability and a better future in Europe, Gurnah’s work has gained greater resonance and importance. In a 2001 essay in the Guardian, he wrote: “The debate over asylum is twinned with a paranoid narrative of race, disguised and smuggled in as euphemisms about foreign lands and cultural integrity.” Abdulrazak Gurnah (July 2011). "The Urge to Nowhere: Wicomb and Cosmopolitanism". Safundi. 12 (3–4): 261–275. doi: 10.1080/17533171.2011.586828. ISSN 1543-1304. Wikidata Q108824246.

Nobel Laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah Urges Us Not to Forget the Past". Time. 10 January 2022 . Retrieved 15 August 2023. a b "Nobel Prize in Literature 2021: Abdulrazak Gurnah honoured". The Irish Times. 7 October 2021. Archived from the original on 7 October 2021 . Retrieved 7 October 2021. Kaigai, Ezekiel Kimani (April 2014) "Encountering Strange Lands: Migrant Texture in Abdulrazak Gurnah's Fiction". Stellenbosch University. Archived from the original on 10 October 2021. Retrieved 10 October 2021. Mars-Jones, Adam (15 May 2005). "It was all going so well". The Observer. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021 . Retrieved 7 October 2021.

My Mother Lived on a Farm in Africa" (2006), in NW 14: The Anthology of New Writing, Volume 14, selected by Lavinia Greenlaw and Helon Habila, London: Granta Books [60] Refugee Tales – Comma Press". commapress.co.uk. Archived from the original on 28 May 2021 . Retrieved 7 October 2021. Gurnah's 1994 novel Paradise was shortlisted for the Booker, the Whitbread and the Writers' Guild Prizes as well as the ALOA Prize for the best Danish translation. [33] His novel By the Sea (2001) was longlisted for the Booker and shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, [33] while Desertion (2005) was shortlisted for the 2006 Commonwealth Writers' Prize. [33] [34]Lewis, Simon (May 2013). "Postmodern Materialism in Abdulrazak Gurnah's Dottie: Intertextuality as Ideological Critique of Englishness". English Studies in Africa. 56 (1): 39–50. doi: 10.1080/00138398.2013.780680. ISSN 0013-8398. S2CID 145731880. Paradise (1994) [48] (shortlisted for the Booker Prize [49] and the Whitbread Prize; [49] selected for the Big Jubilee Read) People | Abdulrazak Gurnah". Wasafiri. Archived from the original on 3 August 2019 . Retrieved 7 October 2021. Bosman, Sean James (26 August 2021). "Abdulrazak Gurnah". Rejection of Victimhood in Literature by Abdulrazak Gurnah, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and Luis Alberto Urrea. Brill. pp.36–72. doi: 10.1163/9789004469006_003. ISBN 978-90-04-46900-6. S2CID 241357989.

Hand, Felicity. "Abdulrazak Gurnah (1948–)". The Literary Encyclopedia (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 19 June 2018 . Retrieved 7 October 2021. Gurnah was awarded the 2021 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 the University of Kent. [4] Early life and education [ edit ] I am honoured to be awarded this prize and to join the writers who have preceded me on this list. It is overwhelming and I am so proud.” King, Bruce (2006). "Abdulrazak Gurnah and Hanif Kureishi: Failed Revolutions". In Acheson, James; Ross, Sarah C.E. (eds.). The Contemporary British Novel Since 1980. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. pp.85–94. doi: 10.1007/978-1-349-73717-8_8. ISBN 978-1-349-73717-8. OCLC 1104713636. Mengiste, Maaza (8 October 2021). "Abdulrazak Gurnah: where to start with the Nobel prize winner". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 9 October 2021 . Retrieved 9 October 2021.AbdulrazakGurnah (born 1948, Zanzibar (now in Tanzania)) Tanzanian-born British author known for his novels about the effects of colonialism, the refugee experience, and displacement in the world. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021. Pilling, David (8 October 2021). "Abdulrazak Gurnah, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature". Financial Times.