Two figures bridge the seas of Zanzibar, an island that joined the Republic of Tanzania in 1964. Freddie Mercury is one. The other is Abdulrazak Gurnah, the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. In Zanzibar, not all celebrate his name, and not every reaction is simple. Gurnah left the island after the 1962 coup against the Arab government and found a long arc in exile, first in London and later in Canterbury. There, he nurtured a steady career within a venerable institution, shaping his voice until the Nobel opened doors he scarcely imagined. His work, widely recognized as postcolonial fiction written in English, captures a tension that many readers feel: the wandering paths of African peoples and the scorn or misunderstanding that often greet the metropolis. The Deserter, one of his notable novels, even found its way to Madrid in publication outreach.
One question looms: does winning the Nobel still grant a writer the freedom they enjoy when read by a devoted few? If the prize touched him at all, it brought new readers who had not known him and who said, This writer knows what they are doing. It signified recognition from audiences who had never encountered him before.
For some, global fame can feel paralyzing, bringing with it a sense of over-responsibility. Gurnah recalls being in the middle of drafting a novel when the prize arrived. The award invited many interviews and meetings, which made sustained writing more difficult. He chose to savor the moment while continuing the work in front of him. In recent months, he has returned to the same novel, and the core remains unchanged: ideas, effort, and the anxiety of getting it right. The public now seeks his opinion more than before, though that shift is not new to him.
Swahili is his mother tongue, but his literary language is English. Who is he writing for, Europeans or Africans? For those who wish to read him, the answer is not with a fixed target reader in mind. He has read authors from Britain, America, France, Russia, Africa, and the Arab world, and he has never wondered if they were written for him. A reader who speaks Swahili or follows Islam may notice dimensions of his work that a Spaniard might miss. Readers interpret texts through the lens of their own knowledge, and that difference, while real, rarely alters the larger purpose of the writing.
The Zanzibar world remains undervalued in literature and deserves broader attention. How well does his influence align with an 18-year history in Great Britain, given the more than fifty years he has lived abroad? The question is not easily answered. It feels like a mysterious gift that writers receive. Some inquiries challenge him, often tied to the world in which he grew up, yet the aim is not to recreate that world but to explore how imagination and memory illuminate the past. He returns to that Zanzibar world because it remains insufficiently understood and insufficiently written about as it deserves.
Was there a moment when he could claim to be a writer? It is hard to say. It can be brave to declare oneself a writer. For a long time he kept silence to avoid ridicule and preserve his pride. Publishing a book did not instantly confer the status; the realization took time. He spent years as an academic who wrote, then became a writer who teaches in a new way.
Things seem easier with the Nobel on his side. He laughs, though he notes it took time to speak of it without feeling exposed as an exhibitionist.
Did he have to leave his hometown to write honestly? Some scholars argue that distance helps; others write deeply without leaving home. He points to Seamus Heaney as a parallel and to Nabokov or Conrad as counterpoints who left their origins or altered their language. In his case, departure provided the motivation to write, though it is not certain he would have become a writer without leaving. European colonialism carried a moral pretense of justice, while the natives bore the brunt of oppression. In truth, both sides showed flaws, and no single side offered an unblemished moral lesson.
When the Nobel was awarded, readers discovered a writer who did not fit a single stereotype of Africa. The continent’s pluralism becomes visible in a region where history connected Arabs, Indians, and Africans for centuries, a crossroads of cultures largely unfamiliar to Europe. In The Deserter, the metropolis becomes a flawed image for colonized societies. In truth, the actors were often equally corrupt, and European colonialism carried a rhetoric of virtue that did not match the lived reality. Moral judgments rarely stood up to scrutiny.
One character, Rashid, moves to England at a young age and becomes a university professor there. How much of the author’s experience is reflected in him? The dates do not align perfectly; Rashid leaves in the 1950s while the author left in the 1960s, so the experiences diverge. Yet the essence of the foreigner’s reception in Britain remains recognizable. The author’s own experience lives within Rashid’s, even if it is not a direct copy.
As a writer, he does not seek to fix the world, even as he believes readers should consider injustice and pursue change. Rashid notes that English schooling helped him sense a cultural inferiority toward African traditions only after arriving in England. The colonial project had diminished local knowledge, a pattern the author witnessed. As a teacher, he sought to blend diverse strands of knowledge.
Literature can be a political instrument, but the author does not pursue it as a primary weapon. He is drawn to themes of injustice and humanization, inviting readers to understand the conflicts and the data behind them. The choice remains with the reader to decide what must change. He believes in representing himself, not speaking for others. He supports the idea that individuals should engage with the world, but he does not presume to speak for all.
The discussion touches on Brexit, exploring how Britons of foreign origin navigate life in a changing United Kingdom. Brexit, he argues, echoed a rhetoric of division and nostalgia for a past that did not account for foreign residents. It is not merely about employment or the economy; the deeper issue concerns how race and belonging are understood amid a shifting national narrative. He also points to the emergence of a prime minister of Indian origin as a provocative, revealing moment in this dialogue.
The conversation broadens the understanding of Africa as a cross-cultural space where histories mingle and identities resist simple categorization. The island’s stories deserve fuller attention, and the author’s ongoing life work continues to contribute to that broader discussion [citation].