Nobel Prize in Literature 2021: Abdulrazak Gurnah is this year’s laureate, read his top titles now

Gurnah’s most recent novel, Afterlives, was published this year and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction 2021. It was also one that he started writing as a 21-year-old refugee.

Set in the early-20th-century during Germany’s colonial rule of Africa, this novel explores the lives of people caught up in the conflicts and chaos of the First World War. Linking humanity with colonialism, it highlights the largely untold presence of Germany in Africa and is said to be captivating and heartbreaking.

Told against the backdrop of colonialism and revolution in Zanzibar, this novel follows the life of Salim from his childhood in the Sixties to his unpleasant experiences of living in London as an immigrant in the Nineties. Working to instil the same feelings of loneliness and exile experienced by the narrator, it’s likely to stick with you long after you’ve put it down.

This novel tells the tale of an elderly man, Saleh Omar, who arrives in England as an asylum seeker, and Latif Mahmud, both of whom are connected through Saleh’s past. Their meeting unravels a story of love and disloyalty, and in doing so, creates a picture of those who were desperately trying to find stability amid turmoil and uncertainty in that time.

Booker Prize-nominated novel Paradise is set in early-20th-century Tanzania. The story is centred around the life of Yusuf, whose parents sell him to a merchant to repay a debt. This coming-of-age book highlights the violence and colonialism corruption of East Asia at the time. It’s a powerful historical novel that explores power, race and society.