Tanzanian writer, Abdulrazak Gurnah, has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature
The Swedish Academy said the award was in recognition of his “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism.”
He was Born in Zanzibar and he based in England, Gurnah is a professor at the University of Kent. His novel “Paradise” was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1994. The prestigious award comes with a gold medal and 10 million Swedish kronor (over $1.14 million).
The prize money comes from a bequest left by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who died in 1895. The 2021 Nobel Prize for literature was announced today, Thursday. It is an award that has in the past honoured poets, novelists and even a songwriter, Bob Dylan.
Nigeria’s Professor Wole Soyinka won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986. This year’s favourites, according to British bookmakers, included Kenya’s Ngugi wa Thiong’o, French writer Annie Ernaux, Japanese author Haruki Murakami, Canada’s Margaret Atwood and Antiguan-American writer Jamaica Kincaid.
Last year’s prize went to American poet Louise Glück for what the judges described as her “unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.”
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