As a life-long reader and writer, I admit that I'm interested in learning more about Tanzanian novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah who just won the 2021 Nobel Prize in literature for his "for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.”
I passionately believe in the power of literature to enrich our understanding of other cultures and even transform us.
That said, when Bob Dylan received the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 2016, I was very disappointed. Never mind his significance as a cultural figure (singer, songwriter, activist, whatever) he was not a writer or a poet, in the pure sense of the term. Which is to say, stripped of music and his distinctive delivery, his words on the page do not qualify him for this great distinction.
In retrospect, I suppose I should have questioned the legitimacy of this high profile prize when it President Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2009, less than 8 months into his presidency. In retrospect (basically, on promise). I wonder, given his drone legacy and international politics, how Iraqis, Palestinians, Afghanis or Syrians, for example, feel about his peace prize, now?
As someone with a Colombian wife, I lost faith in Nobel Prize when that same year corrupt Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, was awarded the Peace prize -- just one week after the terms of his so-called peace treaty were rejected by the long-suffering people Colombia 😕
You cannot offer terrorists (like FARC) amnesty and make them congressmen without the people's vote... Among the corrections those opposed to his unjust deal demand included:
That those found guilty of crimes be barred from running for public office
That Farc leaders serve time in prison for crimes committed during the 50-year conflict
That the Farc use their illicit gains to pay their victims compensation
That no changes be made to the Colombian constitution
Following this latest travesty of justice, and the sex abuse scandal that cancelled the Nobel Prize in 2018, I lost interest in their announcements for a few years, and have only just returned, now, with curiosity regarding this year's winner for literature.