DAR ES SALAAM, Oct 9 (NNN-IRIN) – Tanzanian President, Samia Suluhu Hassan, congratulated Tanzanian-born writer, Abdulrazak Gurnah, for winning the Nobel Prize in literature.
“I congratulate Mr. Abdulrazak Gurnah for winning the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature. The prize is an honour to you, our Tanzanian nation and Africa in general,” President Hassan tweeted.
“Gurnah has made Tanzania and Africa proud,” Tanzania’s chief government spokesperson, Gerson Msigwa, said over phone.
The prestigious prize was awarded on Thursday by the Swedish Academy and cited Gurnah’s uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism, and the fate of refugees in the gulf, between cultures and continents.
Msigwa said, the brilliant work done by Gurnah, a Tanzanian-born author living in England, should inspire other Tanzanians to scoop up the prestigious award in future.
He added, winning the prize will help promote Tanzania, including in world tourism.
Born in Tanzania’s Zanzibar and based in England, Gurnah, 73, has recently retired as a professor of post-colonial literature at the University of Kent.
He has published 10 novels and a number of short stories. He is known for his 1994 novel “Paradise,” set in colonial East Africa during World War I, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction.– NNN-IRIN
