Zanzibar-born novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah won this year's Nobel Prize in 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," announced the Swedish Academy this morning.
Gurnah was born in 1948. He's was previously a professor of English and postcolonial literature at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England until his retirement.
The American poet Louise Glück won the 2020 Nobel Prize in literature.
The Swedish Academy often takes criticism for focusing too heavily on male, mainly Eurocentric writers. In its 120-year history, only 16 women have won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Until today, the last Black person awarded the prize was Toni Morrison in 1993.
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/07/1043436576/nobel-prize-literature-2021