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Lecture
Virtual

A conversation with Nobel Prize laureate in Literature 2021, Professor Abdulrazak Gurnah

Photo of Nobel Laureate Professor Abdulrazak Gurnah, Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature 2021
Time • 28 Apr 2022 14:00 - 15:30
Place • Live stream

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2021 was awarded to the novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah, born in Zanzibar and active in England, “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents”.

As part of the Nordic Africa Institute’s 60th year anniversary celebrations, we hosted a virtual conversation with the Nobel Prize laureate in Literature 2021, Professor Abdulrazak Gurnah.


Watch the recorded event here:

  • Nobel laureate:
    Professor Abdulrazak Gurnah, Nobel Prize laureate in Literature 2021, Emeritus Professor of English and Postcolonial Literatures, University of Kent.
  • Moderator:
    Dr. Erik Falk, Coordinator for External Collaboration, Södertörn University and former Senior Researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute.
  • Welcoming remarks
    Therese Sjömander Magnusson, Director, the Nordic Africa Institute
  • Speech
    Nobel laureate, Professor Abdulrazak Gurnah, Nobel Prize laureate in Literature 2021
  • Moderated conversation
    Between Nobel laureate Professor Abdulrazak Gurnah and Dr. Erik Falk
  • Closing remarks
    Therese Sjömander Magnusson, Director, the Nordic Africa Institute
  • Nobel laureate:
    Professor Abdulrazak Gurnah, Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature 2021, Emeritus Professor of English and Postcolonial Literatures, University of Kent.

    Professor Abdulrazak Gurnah was born in Zanzibar and is now best-known as a novelist. His fourth novel, Paradise, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1994 and he was on the judging panel for the Man Booker Prize in 2016. In 2021 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for 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.’

    His main academic interest is in postcolonial writing and in discourses associated with colonialism, especially as they relate to Africa, the Caribbean and India. He has edited two volumes of Essays on African Writing, has published articles on a number of contemporary postcolonial writers, including Naipaul, Rushdie and Zoe Wicomb. He is the editor of A Companion to Salman Rushdie (Cambridge University Press 2007). Abdulrazak is the author of the highly acclaimed novels Memory of Departure, Pilgrims Way, Dottie, Paradise, Admiring Silence, By The Sea, Desertion, The Last Gift, and Gravel Heart. His latest book, Afterlives is published by Bloomsbury.

  • Moderator:
    Dr. Erik Falk, Coordinator for External Collaboration, Södertörn University and Former Senior Researcher at The Nordic Africa Institute.

    Dr. Erik Falk's focus is research in postcolonial African and Caribbean literature. East African literature, African book markets, circulation of literature, postcolonial literature, world literature, literary theory are his areas of expertise. He holds a PhD in English from Karlstad University where he did his dissertation on ‘Subject and History in Selected Works by Abdulrazak Gurnah, Yvonne Vera and David Dabydeen’.

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