Khasem abdul razak gurnah biography

Abdulrazak Gurnah, born in Zanzibar, had already acquired a reputation as a scholar and critic of African literature and published three novels set in the immigrant community in England when in 1994 Paradise was short-listed for the Booker Prize.

This was followed in 1996 by Admiring Silence, partly set in the UK and Tanzania.

Khasem abdul razak gurnah biography

Critics wondered how to classify Gurnah—as a Black British author, African writer, or simply a modern writer of the English language.

Paradise certainly deserves a place in East-African prose fiction, because the language policies in Tanzania had for a long time discouraged the use of English and gave preference to Kiswahili, while the coastal Swahili and Zansibari writers such as Said Khamis would never think of writing in English.

The only other English novels of comparable caliber are those written by the African-Indian author M.G. Vassanji, The Gunny Sack (1989) or Uhuru Street (1991). Just like Vassanji, who