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Abdulrazak Gurnah

October 2025

  • Abdulrazak Gurnah.

    Audiobook of the week
    Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah audiobook review – coming-of-age saga in Tanzania

    Three young people step boldly into their adult lives in this elegantly narrated novel from the Nobel laureate

September 2025

  • Sally Rooney and Annie Ernaux

    Sally Rooney and Annie Ernaux among authors urging Macron to reinstate Gaza writers programme

    20 authors, including Viet Thanh Nguyen and Abdulrazak Gurnah, call on the French president to restart scheme to help creatives evacuate

March 2025

  • TOPSHOT-FRANCE-LITERATURE-PORTRAIT-NOBEL-GURNAH<br>TOPSHOT - Tanzanian-born British novelist, academic and Nobel Prize in Literature in 2021 Abdulrazak Gurnah, poses during a photo session in Paris on June 16, 2022 (Photo by JOEL SAGET / AFP) (Photo by JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images)

    Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah review – love and betrayal from the Nobel laureate

    This is a powerful story of debt and obligation set against the tourism boom in post-colonial Tanzania
  • The port of Dar es Salaam.

    Book of the day
    Theft by Abdulrazak Gurnah review – a masterclass in quicksilver storytelling

    The Nobel laureate’s wonderful new novel connects a trio of east African teens as they come of age, moving from small-scale dramas to wide-ranging social panoramas
  • Michael Sheen, Jameela Jamil and Hanif Kureishi.

    Michael Sheen, Jameela Jamil and Hanif Kureishi join packed Hay festival lineup

    Yulia Navalnaya, widow of Russian opposition leader, is also due to appear, in a festival dedicated to activism and an exploration of the impact of AI

September 2022

  • Abdulrazak Gurnah and Margaret Atwood.

    Margaret Atwood and Neil Gaiman among authors signed up for Ukrainian book festival

    Lviv BookForum is partnering with Hay festival for a programme of in-person and online events, which will be streamed free from 6-9 October

July 2022

  • Abdulrazak Gurnah

    The books of my life
    Abdulrazak Gurnah: ‘My comfort reading is cricket reports’

    The Tanzanian-born Nobel laureate on James Baldwin, brilliant contemporary African writers and reading cricket reports

May 2022

  • The Schatzalp, the luxury sanatorium near Davos that appears in The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann.

    Top 10s
    Top 10 novels about neighbours

    From commune-dwellers to lodgers in miniature, the people we live alongside make intriguing subjects for fiction

April 2022

  • Clockwise from top left: Abdulrazak Gurnah, Nicola Sturgeon, Bernardine Evaristo, Joe Wicks, Corinne Bailey Rae and Damon Galgut.

    Hay festival returns with its first in-person event for three years

    Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah, Bernardine Evaristo, Elif Shafak and Benedict Cumberbatch are among those taking part in the 11-day gathering in Welsh border town

March 2022

  • Tom Hanks in the 2012 film version of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas.

    Top 10s
    Top 10 world-spanning novels

    Writers from David Mitchell to Graham Greene and Rachel Kushner tell stories that seek out interconnectedness, testing and pulling at the idea of nationhood

December 2021

  • Abdulrazak Gurnah.

    Nobel winner Abdulrazak Gurnah says ‘writing cannot be just about polemics’

    The Zanzibari novelist spoke of migration, colonialism and how he became a writer in his acceptance lecture on Tuesdsay

October 2021

  • Abdulrazak Gurnah, the 2021 winner of the Nobel prize in literature.

    The Guardian view on the Nobel prize in literature: beauty out of universal loss

    Editorial: Abdulrazak Gurnah may be writing about leaving Zanzibar for Britain, but he gives voice to displaced people everywhere
  • ‘Terror ruled our lives’ … Gurnah fled Zanzibar after the revolution and now lives in Canterbury.

    ‘I could do with more readers!’ – Abdulrazak Gurnah on winning the Nobel prize for literature

    His lyrical novels about exile and loss enjoy critical acclaim but modest sales. Now he’s Zanzibar’s second most famous son – and £840,000 richer. The writer talks about racism on British buses, Priti Patel, and why books have to entertain
  • Abdulrazak Gurnah, who has been awarded the Nobel prize in literature, in London on Friday.

    Abdulrazak Gurnah: where to start with the Nobel prize winner

    Novelist Maaza Mengiste on how the Nobel laureate has explored exile in all its forms throughout his career
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