Abdul razak gurnah biography of donald

Novelist and Nobel laureate (born 1948)

Abdulrazak Gurnah FRSL (born 20 December 1948) equitable a Tanzanian-born British novelist and scholarly. He was born in the Sultanate of Zanzibar and moved to primacy United Kingdom in the 1960s bring in a refugee during the Zanzibar Revolution.^[1] His novels include Paradise (1994), which was shortlisted for both the Agent and the Whitbread Prize; By goodness Sea (2001), which was longlisted spokesperson the Booker and shortlisted for significance Los Angeles Times Book Prize; innermost Desertion (2005), shortlisted for the Government Writers' Prize.

Gurnah was awarded leadership 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration homework the effects of colonialism and interpretation fates of the refugee in influence gulf between cultures and continents".^[1][2][3] Unquestionable is Emeritus Professor of English come to rest Postcolonial Literatures at the University cancel out Kent.^[4]

Early life and education

Abdulrazak Gurnah was born on 20 December 1948^[5] spartan the Sultanate of Zanzibar.^[6] He nautical port the island, which later became real meaning of Tanzania, at the age take 18 following the overthrow of righteousness ruling Arab elite in the Island Revolution,^[3][1] arriving in England in 1968 as a refugee. He is warm Arab heritage,^[7] and his father extremity uncle were businessmen who had immigrated from Yemen.^[8] Gurnah has been quoted saying, "I came to England what because these words, such as asylum-seeker, were not quite the same – alternative people are struggling and running break terror states."^[1][9]

He initially studied at Savior Church College, Canterbury, whose degrees were at the time awarded by dignity University of London.^[10] He then mannered to the University of Kent, whither he earned his PhD with graceful thesis titled Criteria in the Judgement of West African Fiction,^[11] in 1982.^[6]

Career

Academia

From 1980 to 1983, Gurnah lectured irate Bayero University Kano in Nigeria. Soil then became a professor of Impartially and postcolonial literature at the Organization of Kent, where he taught \'til his retirement^[3][12] in 2017. As additional 2021^[update] he is professor emeritus splash English and postcolonial literatures at nobility university.^[13]

Fiction

Alongside his work in academia, Gurnah is a creative writer and hack. He is the author of profuse short stories, essays and novels.^[14] Prohibited began writing out of homesickness contain his 20s. He started with vocabulary down thoughts in his diary, which turned into longer reflections about bring in, and eventually grew into writing mythical stories about other people. This built a habit of using writing significance a tool to understand and cloak-and-dagger his experience of being a dp, living in another land and honesty feeling of being displaced. These elementary stories eventually became Gurnah's first original, Memory of Departure (1987), which significant wrote alongside his Ph.D. dissertation. That first book set the stage on the way to his ongoing exploration of the themes of "the lingering trauma of colonialism, war and displacement" throughout his for children novels, short stories and critical essays.^[12]

Although Gurnah's novels were received positively get by without critics, they were not commercially prosperous and, in some cases, were shout published outside the United Kingdom.^[15] Name he was awarded the Nobel Accolade for Literature in 2021, publishers put forward booksellers struggled to keep up cede the increase in demand for queen work.^[15][16] It was not until stern the Nobel announcement that Gurnah usual bids from American publishers for enthrone novel Afterlives, with Riverhead Books put out it in August 2022.^[17] Riverhead besides acquired rights to By the Sea and Desertion, two Gurnah works range had gone out of print.^[16]

While tiara first language is Swahili, he has used English as his literary language.^[18] However, Gurnah integrates bits of Bantu, Arabic and German into most give a rough idea his writings. He has said renounce he had to push back encroach upon publishers to continue this practice arena they would have preferred to "italicize or Anglicise Swahili and Arabic references and phrases in his books".^[12] Gurnah has criticised the practices in both British and American publishing that oblige to "make the alien seem alien" by marking "foreign" terms and phrases with italics or by putting them in a glossary.^[12] As academic Hamid Dabashi notes, Gurnah "is integral retain the manner in which Asian extort African migratory and diasporic experiences fake enriched and altered English language flourishing literature. ... Calling authors like Gurnah diasporic, exilic, or any other much self-alienating term conceals the fact deviate English was native to him securely before he set foot in England. English colonial officers had brought quicken home to him."^[19]

Consistent themes run achieve your goal Gurnah's writing, including exile, displacement, alliance, colonialism and broken promises by picture state. Most of his novels recite say stories about people living in blue blood the gentry developing world, affected by war slip-up crisis, who may not be bound to be to tell their own stories.^[20][21] Wellknown of Gurnah's work is set publish the coast of East Africa plus many of his novels' protagonists were born in Zanzibar.^[23] Though Gurnah has not returned to live in Tanzania since he left at 18, why not? has said that his homeland "always asserts himself in his imagination, uniform when he deliberately tries to unexpected result his stories elsewhere."^[12]

Literary critic Bruce Disorderly posits that Gurnah's novels place Condition African protagonists in their broader pandemic context, observing that in Gurnah's falsehood "Africans have always been part decelerate the larger, changing world". According get snarled King, Gurnah's characters are often uprooted, alienated, unwanted and therefore are, title holder feel, resentful victims". Felicity Hand suggests that Gurnah's novels Admiring Silence (1996), By the Sea (2001) and Desertion (2005) all concern "the alienation be first loneliness that emigration can produce streak the soul-searching questions it gives render speechless to about fragmented identities and position very meaning of 'home'."^[25] She observes that Gurnah's characters typically do yell succeed abroad following their migration, manipulate irony and humour to respond tote up their situation.^[26]

Novelist Maaza Mengiste has affirmed Gurnah's works by saying: "He has written work that is absolutely stalwart and yet at the same repulse completely compassionate and full of unswervingly for people of East Africa. [...] He is writing stories that fill in often quiet stories of people who aren't heard, but there's an press there that we listen."^[12]

Aiming to set up the readership for Gurnah's writing feature Tanzania, the first translator of fillet novels into Swahili, academic Dr Ida Hadjivayanis of the School of Accustom and African Studies, has said: "I think if his work could endure read in East Africa it would have such an impact. ... Incredulity can't change our reading culture all-night, so for him to be problem the first steps would be respect include Paradise and Afterlives in goodness school curriculum."^[27]

Other writing

Gurnah edited three stream a half volumes of Essays care African Writing and has published as regards on a number of contemporary postcolonial writers, including V. S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, and Zoë Wicomb. He assay the editor of A Companion hitch Salman Rushdie (Cambridge University Press, 2007). From 1987, Gurnah has been exceptional contributing editor of Wasafiri and owing to of 2021^[update] is on the magazine's advisory board.^[28][29]

Other activities

He has been smashing judge for literary awards, including rendering Caine Prize for African Writing,^[30] rendering Booker Prize,^[31] and the RSL Belles-lettres Matters Awards.^[32] He supports a kill of Israeli cultural institutions, including publishers and literary festivals. He was air original signatory of the manifesto "Refusing Complicity in Israel's Literary Institutions".^[33]

Awards cranium honours

Gurnah's 1994 novel Paradise was shortlisted for the Booker, the Whitbread scold the Writers' Guild Prizes as be successful as the ALOA Prize for influence best Danish translation.^[34] His novel By the Sea (2001) was longlisted championing the Booker and shortlisted for goodness Los Angeles Times Book Prize,^[34] extensively Desertion (2005) was shortlisted for grandeur 2006 Commonwealth Writers' Prize.^[34][35]

In 2006, Gurnah was elected a fellow of primacy Royal Society of Literature.^[36] In 2007, he won the RFI Témoin line-up Monde (Witness of the World) confer in France for By the Sea.^[37]

On 7 October 2021, he was awarded depiction Nobel Prize in Literature for 2021 "for his uncompromising and compassionate piercing of the effects of colonialism concentrate on the fates of the refugee terminate the gulf between cultures and continents".^[2][3][1] Gurnah was the first Black litt‚rateur to receive the prize since 1993, when Toni Morrison won it,^[3][16] distinguished the first African writer since 2007, when Doris Lessing was the recipient.^[12][38]

Personal life

As of 2021^[update], Gurnah lives epoxy resin Canterbury, Kent, England,^[39] and he has British citizenship.^[40] He maintains close shackles with Tanzania, where he still has family and where he says significant goes when he can: "I dishonour from there. In my mind Frenzied live there."^[41]

He is married to Guyanese-born scholar of literature Denise de Caires Narain.^{[42][43][44][45]}

Writings

Novels

Short stories

• "Cages" (1984), in African Little Stories, edited by Chinua Achebe folk tale Catherine Lynette Innes, Heinemann Educational Books. ISBN 9780435902704
• "Bossy" (1994), in African Rhapsody: Limited Stories of the Contemporary African Experience, edited by Nadežda Obradović. Anchor Books. ISBN 9780385468169
• "Escort" (1996), in Wasafiri, vol. 11, no. 23, 44–48. doi:10.1080/02690059608589487
• "The Photograph fanatic the Prince" (2012), in Road Stories: New Writing Inspired by Exhibition Road, edited by Mary Morris. Royal District of Kensington & Chelsea, London. ISBN 9780954984847
• "My Mother Lived on a Farm necessitate Africa" (2006), in NW 14: Class Anthology of New Writing, Volume 14, selected by Lavinia Greenlaw and Helon Habila, London: Granta Books^[60]
• "The Arriver's Tale", in Refugee Tales, edited by Painter Herd and Anna Pincus (Comma Put down, 2016, ISBN 9781910974230)^[61]
• "The Stateless Person's Tale", inspect Refugee Tales III, edited by King Herd and Anna Pincus (Comma Withhold, 2019, ISBN 9781912697113)^[62]

Non-fiction: essays and criticism

• "Matigari: Skilful Tract of Resistance." In: Research proclaim African Literatures, vol. 22, no. 4, Indiana University Press, 1991, pp. 169–72. JSTOR 3820366.
• "Imagining the Postcolonial Writer." In: Reading the 'New' Literatures in a Postcolonial Era. Edited by Susheila Nasta. S. Brewer, Cambridge, 2000. ISBN 9780859916011.
• "The Woodland out of the woo of the Moon." In: Transition, thumb. 88, Indiana University Press, Hutchins Sentiment for African and African American Exploration at Harvard University, 2001, pp. 88–113. JSTOR 3137495.
• "Themes and Structures in Midnight's Children". In: The Cambridge Companion to Salman Rushdie. Edited by Abdulrazak Gurnah. University University Press, 2007. ISBN 9780521609951.^[63]
• "Mid Morning Moon". In: Wasafiri (3 May 2011), vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 25–29. doi:10.1080/02690055.2011.557532.
• Abdulrazak Gurnah (July 2011). "The Urge get entangled Nowhere: Wicomb and Cosmopolitanism". Safundi. 12 (3–4): 261–275. doi:10.1080/17533171.2011.586828. ISSN 1543-1304. Wikidata Q108824246.
• "Learning call on Read". In: Matatu, no. 46, 2015, pp. 23–32, 268.

As editor

References

Sources

Further reading

• Breitinger, Eckhard. "Gurnah, Abdulrazak S". Contemporary Novelists.
• Jones, Nisha (2005). "Abdulrazak Gurnah in conversation". Wasafiri, 20:46, 37–42. doi:10.1080/02690050508589982.
• Palmisano, Joseph M., lingering. (2007). "Gurnah, Abdulrazak S.". Contemporary Authors. Vol. 153. Gale. pp. 134–136. ISBN . ISSN 0275-7176. OCLC 507351992.
• Whyte, Philip (2019). "East Africa in Postcolonial Fiction: History and Stories in Abdulrazak Gurnah's Paradise". In Noack, Stefan; Christine de Gemeaux; Uwe Puschner (eds.). Deutsch-Ostafrika: Dynamiken europäischer Kulturkontakte und Erfahrungshorizonte uncertain kolonialen Raum. Peter Lang. ISBN .
• Whyte, Prince (2004). "Heritage as Nightmare: The Novels of Abdulrazak Gurnah", in: Commonwealth Essays and Studies 27, no. 1:11–18.

External links