Why Tanzanian Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah hardly known back home

Zanzibar-born Abdulrazak Gurnah became the most talked-about writer in the world when he won this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature, yet he is little known in Tanzania.

The accolade for the 72-year-old author was hailed as ground-breaking for African writing, but in bookshops across the East Africa nation, Gurnah’s novels are nowhere to be found.

While Gurnah’s books have been primarily marketed in the UK, where he has lived for the last five decades, his 10 novels analyse issues close to the heart of Zanzibaris.

He explores the impact of colonialism on East African identity, and the experiences of refugees as they are forced to seek homes elsewhere.

Gurnah himself left his home aged around 18 – fleeing the turmoil and violence that followed the 1964 revolution which overthrew Zanzibar’s Arab minority ruling elite.