Silence can also be vocal: Abdulrazak Gurnah

The Tanzanian-British author discusses dramatic irony, Chekhov's gun, how tourism blights places, and Theft, his first novel since winning the Nobel Prize in 2021

- Saurabh Sharma

In your novel, By the Sea, there's this fragment: "It seems as if one life has ended and I am now living another one". Does this hold true in the context of your Nobel win?

No, it doesn't feel like a new life. It has obviously made a big difference to how much time I have to write or to do whatever other things I might wish to do. For me, the most important thing about the Nobel award was the recognition. Everybody knows about it—even people who don't read. But for a writer, it is something very definite. That is to say, your writing is okay. The prize is given once a year and even for just one year, to be told something like that is very reassuring.

In addition, there is, of course, the interest that it generates in readers. They want to know about the work, the person. The translations follow. People want to meet you, you get invited, travel, etc. For a writer, you can't wish for something better than to have your work transmitted in this way. But it does take time. It does take time.

Your works are full of silences pregnant with meaning...