Meg Arenberg

Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Nobel: The Right Award for the Wrong Reason

In a contemporary world plagued by xenophobia and racism, Gurnah’s novels nudge us to get quiet and listen, to probe beyond the surfaces of our understanding. We might ask why and with what burdens people find themselves crossing the gulfs between continents and cultures, in what peculiarities of personal experience they might locate their senses of themselves, and in what unanticipated places they might find belonging.