Full Interview with Nobel Prize in Literature 2021 Winner Professor Abdulrazak Gurnah

Professor Goerner, on behalf of the students, staff, alumni of the University of Kent, I just wanted to say many congratulations on the tremendous achievement of your winning the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021. We're all filled with immense pride at that achievement, but how do you feel about it? Thank you. Well, of course I'm delighted. The Nobel Prize is a very big thing for a writer, I suppose, but for literature, for people who are interested in that. But it's actually a very big thing anyway, even if you're not interested in literature, because everybody knows what it is and what it means. So it's terrific to be awarded this prize. Yes, it's a tremendous achievement. Do you feel the weight of its traditions and its history resting on your shoulders in some way? No, I just think, if anything, I think, well, what a wonderful thing to be included in that tradition. I don't feel any burden, or at least not that kind of burden. There are a lot of things that I expected, I think, which is all right. That's how it goes. I mean, like interviews with journalists, like reading contracts for new publications, which is one of the great benefits of a prize like this, of course, that publishers everywhere want to be able to offer their readers your work in their languages. So, you know, a lot of translations. So, you know, there are lots of contracts to read, so you understand what you're signing up for. But mostly, actually, it's events that, you know, interviews and radio conversations with people. Because the surprising thing is that many of them, more or less, ask the same questions. And it makes you wonder why they don't just steal from each other. Well, maybe they need you there to answer the question. No, no, it's fine. As I said, this is part of the deal. This is how it goes. And what went through your mind when you first heard the news? How did you first hear the news? That's one of the questions they all ask. Well, I heard the news just as I was coming into the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea. Just before lunch, it was about 10 to 12. It's important to say it was 10 to 12, because the news was actually announced at 12. And this person speaking to me on the phone, very courteously and politely, said, you have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. And I just thought he was a joker. And I told him so. Is this a prank? I said, is this a joke? What are you doing? Who are you? This sort of thing. And he explained, again, courteously and softly spoken, that he was the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy. And that yes, I had indeed been awarded the Nobel Prize, which will be announced in another eight minutes by then. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I went upstairs where my study is, and logged on to the Swedish Academy just in time to see the very same man who had been on the phone to me a few moments ago actually announcing the award. And I think actually up until that moment, when I heard my name, I still wasn't quite convinced that this wasn't somebody having a laugh behind that soft spoken voice. And you were right to ask the question, I suppose, because there have been examples of people being pranked in that way. That's right. Yeah. So that's right. That's a fairly natural response. And also you can imagine that because that news about it's coming, it's coming, it's nearly there, the announcement is coming in a day or two. If somebody wanted to tease a writer, that would be exactly the thing that you would want to say, Some of your early days as a writer were spent here at the University of Kent. When and how did you first feel your voice as a writer emerged? A long time before then, because it takes a long time. It took me a long time from when I started to write until I actually published anything. So it takes a while. So when I actually started here, I hadn't published any fiction, but I had already written it. And oddly enough, in fact, the year I came here, sort of within a month or so, I had my first letter to say, we would like to publish your, instead of the other ones over the years that have been not interested. So it kind of coincided with me starting here. And then my first novel was published in 1987. And by then I'd been here for about a year and a half. But I don't think it was a matter of fine. By then voice is already there. I've been croaking away for several years. And indeed, the voice isn't kind of a stable voice. It doesn't stay that way, because you develop as a writer, you change, your interests change, you write a different book, which requires a different kind of approach, a different kind of voice. And so you develop a repertoire, I suppose, of both voices, as well as perspectives, as well as interest. And so with luck, it's always growing. It's always something else coming along that enriches or deepens the voice. You are an alumnus of the University of Kent, and you've worked in the School of English for over 30 years, 35 years, I think. What stands out for you from your time here at the university or your memories? Well, it'll be hard to pick one thing. But I suppose the simple answer is for me to have stayed so long here as a teacher in itself indicates that I was very comfortable working here, both in the School of English and with colleagues elsewhere in other departments and with the university generally. So I think it's a place that I have enjoyed living and working within. And how has the university influenced your development as a writer, would you say? I doubt, I doubt. I think these things come, I think, from within. When I say from within, I don't mean just entirely from your talent or imagination alone, but your experience, your interest. And some of those concerns and matters that you reflect on are associated with sometimes very personal experiences, but often also global experiences. Say, in my case, for example, the experience of migration or colonialism, as well as the experience of relocation to another culture, to another place, religion, all sorts of things like that. These are probably not very much to do with being at Kent, but to do with experience, with your history, with what's going on in the world. These are themes that run through your writing, migration and relocation and the cross-currents of all of that. Why is it important for us to study postcolonial literature at the moment, would you say? Well, I would say it's important to study more than just postcolonial literature. But postcolonial literature engages with one phenomenon, I suppose, of our times, which is the consequences of European colonialism. It isn't the only thing worth engaging with, but it is one of the things we need to have a clearer understanding of. And I think postcolonial studies generally would be a useful or helpful mode of inquiry. And now it's no longer just literature, because the ideas behind postcolonial studies have really infiltrated all sorts of disciplines now, anthropology, history, and various periods in literature, not just the contemporary. So medievalists find the frame, as it were, the postcolonial frame, quite useful in trying to engage with issues of cross-cultural exchanges, of cross-cultural antagonisms, going all the way back to whenever, the Crusades. And those sorts of ideas, it's not to say that's the same thing as what postcolonial studies does now, but that idea of cultures encountering each other, and how they cope with that encounter, and how they narrate that encounter, and how that passes on, as it were, into other generations and so on. All of these are issues which, I think, have been influenced by postcolonial theory and postcolonial studies. In its citation, the Nobel Committee commended you for your, and I'll quote here, uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents. What would you say your work tells us about the fate of the refugee? I mean, that's what you quoted there, is what the Swedish Academy wanted to point out as an explanation, I suppose, for the choice that they've made. And of course, I'm not arguing with that. Why would I argue with that? But I would say, perhaps, that I do more than that, or at least the work does more than engage with those issues, which, of course, their citation doesn't mean I don't. It's just that's what they chose to highlight. I don't think in answer to your question, I don't think it's that what I have to say is something, or I have something to say, rather, about the refugee. But because I've written about that, this is another phenomenon of our times. This is around us. Such events are around us in millions of people, not just these dreadful stories of people crossing the Channel and so on, but everywhere else, in Europe, in the United States, in various parts of Africa, in Australia, etc. These matters are, this idea of people trying to escape violence, trying to escape war, indeed, trying to escape economic deprivation as well. These are global events. So, in writing about them, it's not that I'm going to be able to say, this is what we need to do about it. I don't think that's what writers can do. They're not policymakers. But what I think a writer can do, at least this is what I think I can do, is to say, this is how it looks, or this is how it feels to be in this situation, and hope that by doing so, you're able to advance or expand other people's understanding, indeed, my own understanding of this matter. So, there is a link there between the testimony that the writer can give and also the influencing of debates and discourse? Yeah, yeah, of course. Of course, you hope so. It might not be, perhaps, in every case, any of the primary reasons for writing. There is a genre of writing, which is a testimonio, as I call it, particularly in Spanish and in Latin America, where several writers have chosen to announce that their purpose in doing this is to give testimony in order to bring about change. So, this is a highly engaged, politically engaged writing that has a social and political function, and it's deliberately so. But, of course, that's not the only way of writing, and it's not the only reason for writing. You may wish to write to expose an injustice, for example, and the result might possibly be similar, even if you don't say, I'm doing this because I want to produce a testimony. But it perhaps might be that that's what you achieve, because you're drawing attention to an injustice or to an oppression or something like that. But methods vary, but in the end, the consequence is really in the reader. I don't think it's in the writer. A writer might say, I'm standing here on a platform doing this, doing that, doing that, and it might fall on deaf ears. A writer might do the latter, as I'm saying, just might be drawn to expose an injustice, and that might fall on a different kind, might receive a different reception that might say, we should do something about it. It's not really up to the writer. I mean, in the sense of, it's not up to the writer's desire. It is perhaps up to the execution of what he or she does. But in the end, it is up to how the reader receives it. And I suppose I'm interested in this question of the link between creativity and the influencing of wider discussions. We've got a new signature research team called Migration and Movement here at the University. And one of its objectives is to give voice to migrants and refugees and to play a part in informing policy debate. It's really important, isn't it? Or would you say it's important to ensure that the voices, different voices, whether it's creative voices, researchers voices, the voice of migrants themselves to make themselves heard within this kind of environment where these matters are key questions for our time? Yes, of course. And all of those will produce, I suppose, a kind of, how should we say, to use a musical metaphor, a kind of symphony of narratives. So if somebody has an experience of being a refugee, in the first instance, what you want from that narrative is an accurate, truthful, possibly powerful account that will move people to understand that particular person's experience. It might be that the most important thing there is not the quality of the writing, if you know what I mean, whatever that might be, but the quality of the experience that is being narrated. It could be that, like I said a while ago, it could be that there are other occasions when the writing might draw a reader into a more subtle response, a more nuanced response to understanding the background to what happened to that person, in a way that the person himself may not be able to deliver because the experience is raw, the experience is felt deeply, and it might be, you know, he or she might not be capable, perhaps have not reflected enough, it doesn't matter, but he's gone or she has gone through the experience and can deliver it to us as listeners, as readers. So there are many different ways in which narratives can work together to produce this sort of movement forward. So the voice of the writer is important, the reading of the reader is important. What about the study of literature? What role does that play? Well, that's always been a tremendous thing to engage in, as far as I'm concerned, because more often than not, it depends of course what literature you're talking about, whether you're reading as an archivist or whether you're reading as somebody who wants to understand more, but it does seem to me that what literature does more often than not is to pose questions for us, whatever period they're operating in. That's why people keep returning to Shakespeare or to Chaucer or to whatever. It isn't just to study, it is because that their works, their texts, keep opening up questions even though, you know, the century is old. And the same thing works, I think, when literature, sorry, when literature works, it seems to me that process is continuously growing. You know, everything you read, especially if you're, you know, assisted, shall we say, by somebody who's able to point things out here and there, now and then, it opens up issues. It makes you understand things. It, in a sense, humanises what we know, both, say, historically or in terms of social events or social whatever. So, you can study a period, for example, just to take a concrete example, you can study a period, let's say, a period of the Russian Revolution in a history class. You can then go and read Dr Zhivago, or even you can go and read War and Peace, and that gives you a different perspective on events that are to do with the Russian Revolution or something like that. So, that's what I mean by humanise. It actually gives you people going through the processes that you're reading about in terms of when, who, dates, et cetera, and there you live through the experience with whoever it is that is being written about. And, of course, literature is full of ideas that are sometimes being experimented with, sometimes ideas that challenge your or our understanding, our received conventional way of looking at things. That is a tremendous thing to do. The Nobel Prize in Literature gives you a world platform now, in an important sense. How would you like to use that stage in terms of the next phase of your writing life? Well, those are two questions, two different questions. I do think that as a writer and as a human being, I have not been backward, as it were, when it came to writing about or spotting or participating in alleviating an injustice, if I could. And I don't think that that is going to change. That is to say, it's not that because I've been awarded this prize, I will now say, all right, you guys, all of you listen to me, or something like that. I think I will go on doing what I have been doing, which is to continue to do that. If I see or if I feel this is important to say, then I will say that. I will do whatever needs to be said. But I don't think I'm going to now hire an army or something like that. You are the second winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature from the University of Kent in recent years. Of course, Kazuo Shigura was the other one. Is there a link there? And why do you think there have been two in recent years? It's just luck. I don't think there is any link at all. I mean, the Swedish Academy might know what they did it for, but it's just how it happened. Professor Goiner, many thanks for your time today. And on behalf of the university, can I wish you all the very best as you prepare for accepting the award next week? Thank you. Thank you very much.