About this eventLa Monnaie and international house of literature Passa Porta are delighted to welcome another Nobel Prize Winner in Literature, Abdulrazak Gurnah, on 8 April 2024. In novels such as Paradise, Afterlives and By the Sea, the versatile Tanzanian author managed to give a voice to all those who have been neglected by history, from colonial Africa to 1960s London.
Photo Credit: © mark pringle
Abdulrazak Gurnah was born in 1948 in Zanzibar, Tanzania. In 1967 he fled to the UK, where he taught English and postcolonial literature at the University of Kent. His impressive and widely acclaimed oeuvre consists of essays, short stories and novels. Notable works include Paradise (1994), By the Sea (2001) and Desertion (2005). His latest novel, Afterlives (2020), is a work of historical fiction. In his work, he describes the events in his homeland and the difficulties he encountered when he arrived in English while dealing with themes such as uprootedness, migration and colonialism.
When awarding him the highest literary distinction, the Nobel Prize Committee called him ‘one of the world’s most prominent postcolonial writers. He has explored, in a penetrating manner and with great compassion, the consequences of colonialism in East Africa and its effects on the lives of uprooted and migrating people’.
La thématique de son œuvre est en connexion évidente avec la création de l’opéra Ali, qui conte l’histoire vraie d’un garçon qui, à douze ans, s’est aventuré sur la dangereuse route migratoire vers l’Europe.
Part of the proceeds of this evening will go to ICORN, a network of more than seventy cities around the world, including Brussels, that offer shelter to writers at risk.
Organized by La Monnaie, the international house of literature Passa Porta and KVS in collaboration with Meulenhoff.