Prof. Abdulrazak Gurnah is the seventh African writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. There has been great joy among many. Praises poured in from all quarters of the internet when the announcement was made. The President of the United Republic of Tanzania, Her Excellency Samia Suluhu Hassan, and the President of Zanzibar, Dr. Hussein Mwinyi, were among the first to offer their congratulatory remarks.
As writers and members of the literary community in Tanzania, we also want to share our joy – personally and publicly – with Prof. Gurnah. Among us there are both prolific veteran writers and those still emerging in their craft, newly inspired to continue their efforts; there are also other crucial figures in the world of books: editors, publishers, and translators.
Among those collected here are such luminaries as Shafi Adam Shafi, Ida Hadjivayanis, Ahmed Rajab, Anna Manyanza, M.G. Vassanji, Sandra Mushi, Walter Bgoya, Demere Kitunga, Richard Mabala, Ayeta Wangusa, Fadhy Mtanga, Nahida Esmail, Amil Shivji, Laura Pettie, Hussein Tuwa, Neema Komba, Said Ahmed Mohamed, Zuhura Yunus, and Joseph Mbele, among others. This is undoubtedly a great honour and it is satisfying to see African writers leading the way in celebrating one of our own receiving this prize.
When I saw 103 African Writers Respond to Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Nobel Prize Win on Brittle Paper, I was excited. I wanted us to share in this moment as well. To say to our compatriot, especially in our language, well done!
Other writers from the continent of Africa who have been awarded this prize are: Albert Camus (1957), Wole Soyinka (1986), Naguib Mahfouz (1988), Nardine Gordimer (1991), J.M Coetzee (2003), and Doris Lessing (2007)
We are happy alongside you! This means a lot to me, personally, and there is no question it has shined a light not only on African writers, but specifically on Tanzanians — for our generation, and for generations to come.
Congratulations Prof. Gurnah!
The names have been arranged in alphabetical order by first name.
Congratulations to Gurnah are due and everyone including myself must congratulate him. But I want to know how we can make many more Gurnahs not by creating a political climate to make people emigrate and write about us abroad. No. I want to look at the important tools that would create many literature prize winners. The most important tool for me is the mastery of the languages used in education in Tanzania. Mastery of a language is the result of reading many books in the language. This will only be possible if there exist many publishers who publish good quality attractive and saleable books. In developing countries, the contribution of the government is central. For example, there are 17,000 primary schools and around 4,000 secondary schools in the country. Out of these, how many have libraries with books that are readable and not merely aid books which are not conducive to increasing reading habits?
Though some may argue otherwise, Abdulzarak Gurnah’s win feels like a win for the country too. I have taken it very personally and I am excited for the future of Tanzanian literature. May our hybrid cultures, food, languages and everything else that makes us uniquely Tanzanian continue to make readers turn the page.
3. Ahmed Rajab
Many congratulations to the pride of Zanzibar and Africa’s new literary giant. You truly deserve this distinction. It is my profound hope that your example will continue to inspire a new generation of African writers to keep writing.
4. Amil Shivji
It is absolutely thrilling to have one of our own, especially from Zanzibar — the birthplace of Kiswahili — win the Nobel Prize in Literature. I hope this will bring back the will to read our own works and push more Tanzanian writers to pick up the pen and tell their stories.
As a Tanzanian and a writer, I am delighted to receive the great news that this year, a renowned writer Prof Abdulrazak Gurnah, has won the Nobel Prize in Literature. This prize is the most prestigious award and has been won by renowned laureates such as Toni Morrison (1993) and Wole Soyinka (1986). It is a great honour for us Tanzanians to know that this award has finally come home.
The works of his that I have read before this victory include Gravel Heart and Paradise. I thank my teacher, Abdilatif Abdalla, for introducing me to the works of Abdulrazak Gurnah. Through this victory, literature from Tanzania and across Africa in general, has once again proved its importance around the world.
Congratulations, Prof Abdulrazak Gurnah.
Congratulations to Professor Gurnah on winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. The themes you explore around ideas of belonging, colonialism, displacement, memory and migration are relevant globally as we can see in the mass migration by Africans to Europe on the Mediterranean Sea, the abused female domestic workers in the Middle East, victims of xenophobia on the continent and the challenge of having multiple identities in Africa. Thank you for sharing the story of our human journey to the world.
Congratulations Prof. Gurnah, you have made the Tanzanian flag known. It is time for us to get into the pages of your books, with pride for your accomplishments.
Prof. Gurnah’s win is a great honour to the literary community. We are encouraged to continue writing, that our writing matters, even if we are not acknowledged for it right away. Our talents can still be recognized, even after a long career, as we see with Prof. Gurnah.
This prize offers a challenge to the notion that writers can only become famous after they have passed. Writers ought to be celebrated while they are alive, and not after they are gone. I hope that we learn something from this prize, to celebrate our own writers with generous prizes while they are still with us. In doing so, we will encourage our people to value the literary arts, and to read and write books themselves.
Gurnah’s win is a huge triumph for Tanzanian writers. Not only has the Nobel prize contributed to the writing community here in Tanzania, it has also inspired so many of us to follow our true passion for writing. As a Tanzanian, I am truly proud, a recognition of this magnitude is incredibly exhilarating. As a Tanzanian writer myself, I feel as though the door has been opened and a threshold crossed for those of us in the African diaspora.
10. Demere Kitunga
I remember reading only one of his titles, ‘Paradise,’ a long time ago. The book intrigued me but I did not know where to find his other titles. It was different, and I wanted to make sense of that difference, know more about the author, but it seems no one in my literary circles knew him at the time, and with time the curiosity went into hibernation.
The Prize brings him and his works back to my attention. I have acquired all his titles as my reading list for the rest of the year. It brings his body of work home and to the global audience. With it, a piece of our history is told by one of our own, albeit hitherto unsung. It brings to our collective consciousness the real meaning of diversity and diverse experience of our shared circumstances. For me personally, it makes the case for us to revisit our silenced histories and herstories, the bulk of which have been told from an external gaze, and/or curated to fit a certain narrative. I have heard people question his nationality and I find it absurd! I left my village when I was nine and grew up in other parts of the same district but to this day, that is where I consider home. Home is just home, no one can give or take it from you, even when circumstances dictate that you live elsewhere.
11. Diana Kamara
Prof. Gurnah is like Freddie Mercury to me. World famous yet not a household name at home. We are happy that he won the prize but uncertain of what to do with his success as part of our history. We can claim his ancestry, but can we claim his success? Probably at best the government will trace his family history and mark a building or the places where he grew up. But really it is the job of our journalists and historians to tell the world the contribution of our shared historical ancestry in shaping this global giant.
All we can do at the moment is sing “Hongera mwanangu ee, nami nihongere ee, hongera.” Translated loosely as “Congratulations my child, as I am also being congratulated.”
12. Dotto Rangimoto
I have written and rewritten this note again and again. Trying to find the right words to celebrate this moment. But lest I be too late to join the chorus, let me say something, however inadequate the words may be.
From the bottom of my heart, I would like to say congratulations to you Professor Abdulrazak Gurnah for winning the Nobel Prize. This honour is incredibly meaningful for your country Zanzibar and for our nation Tanzania.
As a fledging writer of Kiswahili, Prof Gurnah, you have helped me sharpen my pen. And I believe that it will be sharpened well, Inshallah!
I am sure that as you were writing your novels yesterday, you did not know what tomorrow would bring. Today has come, and we all celebrate it with you! Perhaps you thought, as you wrote, that your pen would influence the world. Indeed it has and I know it will continue to do so.
Ahsante sana, Abdulrazak Gurnah, for making the names Zanzibar and Tanzania ring around the globe. You have honoured us! I wish you all the best and pray for ever greater things for you.
13. Elias Kasunga
“Possible.” That is the first word that came to my mind when your name was announced as the Nobel Laureate for Literature. To know that what we write as Africans can impact the world of literature and that our history can touch the hearts of those beyond our borders is indeed the very reassurance I needed as a young author. Congratulations, and thank you for sharing your art with the world.
14. Elias Mutani
It is a privilege for us that among sons and daughters of East Africa, one has emerged as a beacon. It has given me incredible motivation to move forward. Gurnah and fellow writers who place an African context into the global arena are a mirror for the present and future generations. Many congratulations to him.
I, Elizabeth Mahenge, am so happy for you dear writer Gurnah for the esteem bestowed upon you for your work. May the Almighty God help you accomplish all your dreams. Amen!
16. Fadhy Mtanga
As Tanzanians, we are so proud that our own Prof. Abdulrazak Gurnah has received this dignified prize. Despite the many miles between us and where he now lives, we Tanzanians are delighted.
17. Farida Somjee
My heartiest congratulations to Abdulrazak Gurnah for receiving a Nobel Prize in Literature. Best Wishes, Farida Somjee.
18. Gloria Gonsalves
I neither heard nor read Abdulrazak Gurnah until he won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Perhaps it has to do with the type of writing I tend to read more. Post-colonial effects wouldn’t be one of my first choices. To congratulate him while I have never read his work initially seemed dishonest. The media headlines centred my sentiments to one revelation. As a Tanzanian winner, he collectively awarded Tanzanians and Africans. I beamed with pride.
I, too, received congratulations from family members and colleagues. My phone beeped with messages of the win. On that day after he was declared a winner, I felt like I had won too. My German parents-in-law wrote me an email of congratulations. They said (courtesy translated), “We congratulate you on your fellow countryman Abdulrazak Gurnah from Tanzania/Zanzibar, who has been awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature. Well, you two probably don’t know each other, yet you both share a passion for writing. Congratulations and best regards”.
Professor Gurnah’s winning has allowed us to visualise the possibility of attaining the most prestigious literary award in the world, not just for me but for all potential writers. What lit a fire under my writing before was to prove that Tanzanian writers exist, even in the spaces where it is uncommon for Africans. I still cannot comprehend what I read once online that someone did not know Tanzania has writers. His win has added fuel to my literary mission to prove that Tanzanian writers exist, and the world honours them.
Congratulations, Professor Abdulrazak Gurnah. Thank you for bringing it home.
19. Hussein Tuwa
I congratulate Prof. Gurnah for receiving this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature. He has become a light illuminating Tanzania and East Africa in the eyes of the literary world. While he may use English as the language of his writing, it is an undeniable truth that he comes from the country where Kiswahili was born. This elevates our language to a great place of honor for it is the mother tongue of a Nobel laureate in literature.
20. Ida Hadjivayanis
As a Tanzanian of Zanzibar origin, Gurnah’s work has always spoken to me at a very personal level. This win is simply groundbreaking! Gurnah unapologetically uses Swahili terms in his writing, thus reinforcing the importance of language. He speaks the truth by pushing away the colonial perspective. I am simply thrilled beyond words.
21. Nahida Esmail
Congratulations to fellow Tanzanian writer, Abdulrazak Gurnah, on winning the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature. Sadly, his works are not well known amongst Tanzanians, but hopefully that will change now. It is a shame that only after winning the Nobel prize does Africa recognize him better.
Despite the lack of recognition, it’s noble of Gurnah to dedicate his Nobel Prize to Africa and Africans. Being an African writer to win one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, will surely have a positive impact on the reading culture in Tanzania.
His winning also coincided with the just ended African Writers Conference that was held in Dar Es Salaam, where the aim was to recognize African writers and support them.
I am overwhelmingly proud that this year’s Literature Nobel Laureate is our very own Tanzanian Abdulrazak Gurnah. Teaching Cambridge English Literature in Tanzania, I have seen the importance of being able to select works that my students can engage well with. It is only in the last 2 years that Wole Soyinka (Literature Nobel Laureate 1986) has appeared on the Literature syllabus. I’ve witnessed the magic that happens in the classroom when students are able to connect with familiar aspects of culture and society through contemporary African writers. As well as a sense of pride in knowing the writer’s roots, the literature itself comes alive! I am looking forward to seeing Gurnah’s works on both Cambridge and NECTA reading lists in the very near future!
Congratulations Professor Gurnah!
23. Joseph Mbele
I congratulate Professor Abdulrazak Gurnah very much for winning this distinguished award, the Nobel Prize in Literature. The whole of Africa has had only a handful of winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Other people have desired this award for years, but it has landed in our hands. It is a special honour. We should do whatever we can to take advantage of the opportunities wrought by this award. I offer endless congratulations to our writer.
24. Laura Pettie
The Nobel Prize is a truly international recognition. It is the most prestigious literary prize in the world. This is no small thing!
It gives me great pride to know that the winner of this prize, Prof Abdulrazak Gurnah, is a native of Zanzibar, one of the two countries that forms our union as Tanzania. In both Zanzibar and the mainland, we have every reason to celebrate him and feel proud.
One of our own has been elevated to international status. When his name is mentioned, Tanzania and Zanzibar are mentioned. This opens the door for our literatures and our histories to be read more closely. This is no small thing truly!
The opportunity and the challenge is now before us. The opportunity is before us to write even greater works, to learn from this recognition. His origin is our gift. And his prize is our map.
25. Lello Mmassy
I was overwhelmed with joy when I heard that a Tanzanian had won the Nobel Prize in Literature. I thought, so such things are actually possible? I congratulate Prof. Abdulrazak Gurnah for this win. He has motivated me to continue writing. I will not be tired, I will not give up. I look forward to meeting him when he comes to Tanzania.
It’s inspiring to witness a writer from my country propel relatable storylines to an international audience. The award is timely and well deserved. Congratulations and thank you Prof. Gurnah. May many more from the region follow your lead.
27. Lubacha Deus
Congratulations to Abdulrazak Gurnah for winning this esteemed prize. It’s a big moment for Tanzanians and all Africans. I am sure that many writers across Africa will be inspired by this win. It’s a message that regardless of colour and background, you still could be recognized if you choose to stand for truth as a writer.
Even so, African writers should not write merely to win prizes, but to tell what is meant to last for this continent and the world at large. It is by doing this that we can be recognised as people who contributed towards making a better more secure world.
28. M.G. Vassanji
Congratulations, Abdulrazak. Well deserved.
29. Mkuki Bgoya
Thank you, Ndugu Gurnah, for winning this international prize which has also shone the light of attention on our own literary community in Tanzania which has been forgotten for so long. You have elevated our literary works, especially fiction, which have been neglected in our society. You have shown that you can put our country on the map by simply using your pen and imagination. You have shown our people that our writers deserve to be nurtured, protected and celebrated first here at home so that we can produce more Abdulrazak Gurnahs in the future.
This is a great reminder for our government and our society-at-large to invest in buying books written by our writers and distributing them to our libraries, to start reading and writing programs for children, to protect authors rights from piracy, and invest more in creating a nation of readers so that we can inspire hope in fledgling writers. It is a heavy burden for a single person to carry but we are grateful that he has become an icon and an example of the excellence that can come out of Tanzania. Many congratulations, mzee.
As a Zanzibari, I celebrate Abdulrazak Gurnah. He is our representative, and a storyteller who tells the stories of our country and our people on an international stage. This prize is an award for our stories and a lasting mark of our identity.
Thank you for bestowing on us great pride as Tanzanians and Africans. I am also grateful to you for showing us that writing about ourselves –our everyday lives the struggles of growing up, and our intimate relationships—is not something small or banal but is a way of educating the world. Winning this prize is proof that your works allow readers to don kofias and slippers and become, if only for a moment, Zanzibari themselves. This is no small feat. It speaks to the incredible skill of your craft.
32. Mwafrika Merinyo
I congratulate Abdulrazak Gurnah for receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Nobel Prize is one of the most prestigious awards in the world, and thus as Africans and Tanzanians, we feel great pride for this indigenous African to get the prize.
It’s possible that Gurnah’s work might not be better than other works by African or Tanzanian writers, but the award could be an indication of how his work has succeeded in touching some reader’s life or the life of his own community. I feel proud for the prize to fall in the hands of my fellow African!
33. Nancy Lazaro
I am happy and proud to live in an era where a Nobel Prize winner is among our very own, a Tanzanian, an African. Thank you for paving a way for us, and for generations to come. Your achievement is pushing us to hold onto our dreams and to keep working towards realizing them. You have made it easier for our children to dream, and generations to thrive. You have reminded us the importance of telling our stories, authentically and passionately. You have given us a reason to keep amplifying our voices. Congratulations, Prof. Abdulrazak Gurnah for winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021. Well deserved. It’s about time!
34. Neema Komba
Congratulations, Prof. Abdulrazak Gurnah for this award, you deserve it. It is a moment of great joy and hope to writers in Tanzania, Africa and beyond. As a writer, I am very excited for your win!
35. Ngasuma Kanyeka
Gurnah’s gift is now the pride of Africans and indeed Tanzanians. Apart from celebrating him, he has shown that investing in telling our stories is an earnest, worthwhile endeavor, not because of winning prizes, that’s besides the point, but because our history, our realities and our lives deserve to be examined and explained especially by ourselves. There is incredible value in doing that.
36. Ngollo Mlengeya
Dear Prof. Gurnah,
Many congratulations on winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.. You have become a role model to many of us and have created an environment in which we can truly recognize the value of literature.
37. Pepita Mwanga
Thank you for your rich contributions to literature. This is well deserved. Congratulations, Abdulrazak Gurnah.
38. Richard Mabala
My heartfelt congratulations to Abdulrazak Gurnah for winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. He represents an unfortunately all too common strand of African writers who overcome adversity and exile to turn their experience into Great literature from which we all can learn.
It is an immeasurable pleasure to congratulate a fellow Zanzibari author on winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. I hope that emerging writers will be inspired to keep writing and publishing their work.
40. Sandra Mushi
Greetings and congratulations to you, Mzee Gurnah!
You clearly deserve this distinguished honour. You have used your gift for writing to inform and educate on difficult matters, and you have done so skillfully. I am beyond excited, for you are the first Tanzanian to receive this award. Now other writers and those who have dreamed of writing are inspired.
This award is a recognition of your enormous contribution to society through the written word. You have left a mark that will be remembered for generations to come.
With all honour and respect, and with deep gratitude, congratulations Mzee Gurnah!
41. Sauda Simba
Congratulations to Abdulrazak Gurnah for winning the prestigious Nobel prize in literature and putting Tanzania and Zanzibar on the map and indeed Africa once again. We welcome him home with open arms not only to rekindle what he lost all these years away but also to engage with our literature departments and book lovers on the mainland and in Zanzibar. He has made us very proud.
42. Shafi Adam Shafi
I congratulate Gurnah. His work is not new to me. I started reading his books about five or six years ago. I’ve read Paradise, Admiring Silence, and Desertion. So I have been reading him for a while and loving his work for a while. And I love him even more because he is Tanzanian, he is Zanzibari.
I think I was among the first people to receive the news that he had won the Nobel Prize. And the first thing I did was to communicate with the people in the literary field, so that the Tanzanian people might give their congratulatory remarks. I was very happy to see the President of Zanzibar among those formally congratulating him and inviting him back to Zanzibar, which is his home.
I give him my most sincere congratulations. I am overjoyed. It feels almost as if I am the one who has won.
We have never met, but I know his family. He is like a younger brother, though we have never met face to face. It would give me great joy to meet him when he comes.
Dear Abdulrazak Gurnah,
My name is Shimbo Pastory William. I am an upcoming writer from Tanzania. I am greatly inspired by your hard-earned honours and accomplishments. You are indeed a timely motivation, especially to young people who are passionate about genuine literature that originates from or affiliates with this end of the world. I sign this tribute from Glasgow, Scotland.
44. Sima Mittal
Respected Sir,
Wishing you big congratulations on your success!
Regards.
45. Sylvia Ilahuka
Our brethren Abdulrazak Gurnah, many congratulations on being bestowed this prestigious award. We laud you for bringing Zanzibar and Tanzania as a whole to global prominence in the field of writing. It is our hope that this victory will give heart to and open doors for other writers from our corner of the world.
46. Walter Bgoya
Warm congratulations Professor Gurnah for being awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Like other compatriots, and especially as a publisher, at Mkuki na Nyota, we are basking in the glory that you have brought to Tanzania through your books. There could be no better evidence of the power of literature, than what has been taking place, in Tanzania, in the whole of Africa generally and in the world, as your name and your works are celebrated. That is how it should be. Literature is a rich source of knowledge and insight into all aspects of human existence, and in the hands of a great writer like yourself it is a great and wonderful way through which to learn.
Our responsibility is now to read your books; discuss, debate and learn from your insights in the things you have written about. We should do so not just for the beauty of your writing but also for how to derive strength from the rich diversity of our nation’s people, and as we also navigate the world we share with others. I hope our governments will respond by taking literature seriously; supporting writers and writing, building and stocking libraries, improving the teaching of languages, nurturing more writers, and future prize winners.
47. Wilbard Makene
It’s Africa again. The continent that is said to be dark, hunger-stricken and poverty tainted. In the last decade, the reverse has been true. Africa shines. African sons and daughters light the continent. It is Abdulrazak Gurnah, the Nobel laureate in Literature from Tanzania. He has the torch, the torch to light Tanzania and the African continent once again. Congratulations, Prof. Abdulrazak Gurnah.
48. William Mkufya
I congratulate him for bringing such an enormous distinction to our country. May the youth follow in his footsteps. I urge them to study literature with dedication.
49. Zuhura Seng’enge
It is heartwarming when you read about a fellow writer and a Tanzanian who has done great things! It’s a moment of pride for all of us and I personally feel inspired to challenge myself to build and train my craft to reach such heights in service of the community that raised me.
Cheers to Gurnah for receiving this prize!
50. Zuhura Yunus
I was overcome with unparalleled joy when I heard that Professor Gurnah had won this prestigious prize. I hope that Tanzanians and Zanzibaris will use this great honour to proclaim the glories of our countries and to galvanize interest in reading and writing. Huge congratulations to the Nobel laureate!
Unapologetically thrilling, Abdulrazaq Gurnah is a true groit and a compassionate novelist,who truly has a vision for the impending posterity. May he live long…