LONDON: British novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah on Monday received his medal as winner of this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature, in a brief ceremony held in London due to the coronavirus pandemic. Gurnah won the prestigious award in October for his novels unflinchingly portraying the effects of colonialism and the plight of refugees.
The 72-year-old author bowed to Sweden’s ambassador to Britain, Mikaela Kumlin Granit, as she handed him his medal and diploma at a ceremony at her official residence. He smiled as he showed off the award to warm applause and posed for waiting photographers.
Traditionally, Gurnah would have received his prize from Sweden’s king, but coronavirus restrictions put paid to travel for the second year in succession.
“Since you cannot go to Stockholm, your Nobel Prize medal and diploma has been brought to you here today,” said Granit.
A main awards ceremony, at which Gurnah’s achievement will be detailed in full, is due to take place in Stockholm on December 10.
The prize also comes with a sum of 10 million Swedish kronor (about $1.1 million).
Gurnah became the fifth African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, with the most recent previously being South African writer J M Coetzee in 2003. Born in Zanzibar off the coast of east Africa, now part of Tanzania, Gurnah fled to Britain as a refugee in the late 1960s, later acquiring British citizenship.
The Swedish Academy said Gurnah was honoured “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents”.
“I write about these conditions because I want to write about human interactions and… what is it that people go through when they are reconstructing lives,” Gurnah told reporters at a news conference in London after his win. – AFP
