Nobel Prize for literature awarded to Zanzibar-born novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah

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Novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah on Thursday won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents."

"The 2021 #NobelPrize in Literature is awarded to the novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents," tweeted the award-giving organisation.

Last year, Louise Glück won the Noble prize in literature “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal”

"2021 literature laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah’s fourth novel ‘Paradise’ (1994), his breakthrough as a writer, evolved from a research trip to East Africa around 1990. It is a coming of age account and a sad love story in which different worlds and belief systems collide," said the Jury.

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The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded 114 times to 118 Nobel Prize laureates between 1901 and 2021. The prize is awarded by the Swedish Academy and is worth 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.14 million).