Abdulrazak Gurnah
Arts Professor of Literature
Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
Education: PhD in English and American Literature, University of Kent, UK
Research Areas: Colonialism and Postcolonialism, Effects of Migration and Displacement, Identity and Cultural Hybridity, Memory and History, Trauma and Healing, Race and Racism.
Abdulrazak Gurnah is an academic and Tanzanian-British novelist. He was born in Zanzibar in 1948 and relocated to the United Kingdom as a refugee in the late 1960s following political unrest. His experiences of exile and displacement have profoundly influenced his literary work, which often explores themes of colonialism, migration, identity, and the refugee experience, particularly within East African contexts.
Gurnah earned his MA and PhD in English and American Literature from the University of Kent, completing his doctorate in 1982. He taught English and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Kent until his retirement, after which he was named Emeritus Professor. His academic interests center on postcolonial writing and the cultural legacies of colonialism, with a regional focus on Africa, the Caribbean, and South Asia. He has published critical essays on writers such as V.S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, and Zoë Wicomb. He has edited several volumes, including Essays on African Writing and A Companion to Salman Rushdie (Cambridge University Press, 2007). In 2016, he served as a judge for the Man Booker Prize.
In 2021, Gurnah was awarded the 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.” He serves on the advisory board of the journal Wasafiri.
Currently, Gurnah is a Professor of Literature at NYU Abu Dhabi, where he teaches courses that delve into themes of colonialism, migration, and identity, drawing upon his extensive background as a novelist and scholar.