The Swedish Academy of Nobel Prizes announced the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature for the year 2021, the Swedish Academy said that “Abdul Razzaq Gharna” won the prize for his relentless and profound intrusion into the influences of colonialism and for delving into the destinies of refugees.
Abdel Razek’s novels include “Paradise”, set in colonial East Africa during World War I, and nominated for a Booker Prize for Fiction, as well as “Memory of Departure”, “Pilgrimage Route”, “Dotti”, “Admiration of Silence”, “By the Sea” and “Life After Death”, which were released in 2020, in addition to a collection of short stories entitled “My Mother Lived on a farm in Africa” which was published in 2006.
Paradise, highlights the sale of the 12-year-old boy Youssef to an Arab merchant, who moves with him between the jungles of Africa and learns about different cultures and tribes. Africans in favour of the Germans on the battlefronts.
The spotlight was shed on Guerna in an unprecedented way, and the American Laura Winters, in the New York Times in 1996, described the novel as “a shimmering tale of coming of age,” and she said of another novel by Guerna, “The Admiration of Silence” was a work. It subtly depicts the suffering of a man trapped between two cultures.
Gherna left Africa as a refugee in the 1960s, amid persecution of ethnic Arabs in Zanzibar, where he grew up when peaceful liberation from British colonial rule led to revolt.
He lectured during the period between 1980 and 1982, at Bayero Kano University in Nigeria, before moving to the University of Kent, where he obtained his PhD in 1982 and is currently Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of English at the University of Kent.
His writing interests are post-colonialism and colonial discourses, particularly with regard to Africa, the Caribbean and India.
Abdul Razzaq Gharna’s long career culminated in winning the Nobel Prize, to focus the lights of great fame, and enter history as the fifth African to win the prize.
Anders Olsson, head of the committee that awards the prize, said: “Guerna is one of the most famous writers in the world, specializing in the post-colonial era”.
Edit by Khalil Saeed Rizq
