Abdulrazak Gurnah Is Awarded The Nobel Prize in Literature

Noble prize is an initiative to recognise people who are making a difference to humankind. This began in 1895 after the death of Alfred Nobel’s. In his death will Nobel Prizes will be awarded in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace. These annual reports follow a preceding year of hard work and dedication in the above fields. The first award was in the year 1901, the ceremony to commemorate this years’ award is dated for December 10, 2021.

The prestigious award comes with a gold medal and a U.S.$1.14 million. The prize money comes from the bequest left by the prize's creator, and Swedish inventor.

The Novel committee choses the Noble Peace Prize laureates through a majority vote. The decision is final and without appeal, the names are announced. The Swedish Academy in charge of designating winners explained that Tanzania's Abdulrazak Gurnah wins the Noble Prize because "His uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents." Teaches and inspires the world.

Amongst the many novels he has written, he is best known for his 1994 novel Paradise. Most of his writing centres on refugee experience, and fiction.

Gurnah is the sixth African to win the prestigious prize. Nigerian Wole Soyinka became the first African to win the prize in 1986, then Egypt's Naguib Mahfouz and three South African writers - Nadine Gordimer, J.M. Coetzee, and Doris Lessing.