Background
Abdulrazak Gurnah is one of only two black African authors to win the Nobel prize. Unlike the Nigerian Wole Soyinka, he was born and raised on the Eastern coast of the continent in the Sultanate of Zanzibar (part of present day Tanzania), but had to flee the country shortly after he finished his high school education due to an overthrow of the Islamic ruler of the island.
Displaced from his home, Gurnah was pushed into life as a refugee, in a moment that clearly shaped (but did not dictate) his work thereafter. He immersed himself into studies of literature and became a professor first in Nigeria and then at the University of Kent. Throughout this time he also wrote a small selection of lauded and awarded novels (though they weren’t considered big sellers) leading both him and others to believe the announcement of his name was “a prank” or “a joke”. But the Nobel truly did award him “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents”.
Works
I read/listened to his latest novel: Theft, and liked it enough that I’m certainly planning on reading/listening to more later. A few key quotes I loved:
“Does beauty like hers make its own rules, disregarding responsibilities and duties?”
“What do these people (foreigners/tourists/volunteers) want with us? Why do they come here? They come here with their filth and their money and they interfere with us and ruin our lives for their pleasure, and it seems that we cannot resist their wealth and their filthy ways … Volunteer! You see them in their big new cars, bringing us their goodwill. They should stay in their own country and do their goodwill there.”
(This is as perfect an encapsulation of my old colleague’s claim that I and those like me were part of “the New Raj”)
Message
Obviously, as someone who spent several years teaching in post-colonial systems and studying the legacy of British colonialism, I’m biased…but fortunately, so is Gurnah, so we’ll get along fine. Impressively, if unsurprisingly, he doesn’t opt for a simple lesson about that flag planting frenzy, instead I’d say he turns a careful eye on the human scale of the shifts and argues colonialism’s legacy lives on in those with a will to power who adopt its lessons.
Position: #3 Left Back
Gurnah reminds me of a full back, he’s wide ranging, flexible and fluid, able to react to whatever is thrown at him. He often reacts to the world that is flung in his face, but he can still cut in and be dangerous in a way that echoes Tolstoy, Ishiguro, Jane Austen and Scotland star Andy Robertson (yes, I linked a Liverpool player to Leo Tolstoy and I stand by it!)
In another crass attempt to get someone to leave a comment on my posts, I’ll just point this out: Gurnah makes 4 Left Backs, but I only have 1 Right Back and 1 Left Winger…am I going to hard on the position I played back in my AYSO glory days? Or have I been fair to put progressive/socialist leaning players on the left?
MacKenzie's Boot Room 