‘Absolutely delighted’: Publishers, authors congratulate Abdulrazak Gurnah for winning Nobel Prize for Literature

"The 2021 Nobel Prize 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," the academy tweeted

News of the Paradise author's win delighted fellow authors, publishers and readers alike. (Source: AP)

Tanzanian author Abdulrazak Gurnah has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature 2021.

“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,” the academy tweeted.

ALSO READ |Tanzanian novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah awarded Nobel literature prize

Gurnah, who was born on Zanzibar in 1948, moved to Britain as a “teenage refugee after an uprising on the Indian Ocean island in 1968”, according to Associated Press.

News of the Paradise author’s win delighted fellow authors, publishers and readers alike. Many took to social media to express joy. Publisher Chiki Sarkar wrote, How extraordinary! I worked with him as a young editor – and @AlexandraPring has championed and believed in him like no one else. Thrilled by this news. So proud.”

Here are some other reactions.

Many Congratulations to novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah for his rich contribution to Literature! #NobelPrize https://t.co/pOEIdoh3UN

— Kailash Satyarthi (@k_satyarthi) October 7, 2021

We are absolutely delighted Abdulrazak Gurnah has been named the winner of the 2021 #NobelPrizeLiterature. Huge congratulations, Abdulrazak 🎉 https://t.co/A87ll1owG1

— RCW Literary Agency (@rcwlitagency) October 7, 2021

“Before maps, the world was limitless. It was maps that gave it shape and made it seem like territory, like something that could be possessed, not just laid waste and plundered. Maps made places on the edges of the imagination seem graspable and placable.”

― Abdulrazak Gurnah
+

— Nilanjana Roy 🇮🇳 (@nilanjanaroy) October 7, 2021

+ If you haven’t yet had the pleasure of reading Gurnah’s often magnificent novels, start with this talk he gave on Indian Ocean journeys “and its archipelago of cultures”, then explore his books:https://t.co/opEwH6B26p

— Nilanjana Roy 🇮🇳 (@nilanjanaroy) October 7, 2021

WOW! Congratulations to Abdulrazak Gurnah on being awarded the #NobelPrize in Literature!

‘One of Africa’s greatest living writers’ Giles Foden https://t.co/ULcT75ZS9X

— Bloomsbury UK (@BloomsburyBooks) October 7, 2021

How extraordinary ! I worked with him as a young editor – and @AlexandraPring has championed and believed in him like no one else. Thrilled by this news. So proud https://t.co/D7Q9E3yiI2

— Chiki Sarkar (@Chikisarkar) October 7, 2021

Last year, American poet Louise Glück had won the prize. The judges had described as her “unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.”