Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnah wins Nobel Prize in Literature

  

Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnah was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday for works that explore the legacies of imperialism on uprooted individuals. 

The Swedish Academy said the award was in recognition of his "uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents." 

Born in Zanzibar in 1948 and based in England, Gurnah is a professor at the University of Kent. He is the author of 10 novels, including Paradise, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1994.