Babatunde Odubanwo

A Tanzanian has cliched the distinguished Noble Prize in literature. The Zanzibar-born novelist, Abdulrazak Gurnah was announced by the prestigious award organisation in recognition of the writer’s excellent writing abilities.

The 2021 Noble prize winner in Literature is the first writer from the semi-autonomous island in modern-day Tanzania. Although, Abdulrazak hails from Zanzibar in Tanzania, he has since been living in the United Kingdom since the 60s.
To his credit, he has written a total of 10 novels and several short stories, including “Paradise,” which was nominated for the Booker Prize in 1994.

The theme of his works basically surrounds diasporic causes: identity, displacement, and loss under east Africa’s complex colonial history.

He was until recent retirement, a Professor of English and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Kent, Canterbury.