The Gulf between Us

Dear Kate,

The Nobel literature committee did it again, gave the prize to someone who wasn't really in the running at all.

Zanzibari novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah is the first black writer to win in 28 years, first black African in 35, and these facts alone I suppose are good enough.  I really do think they are good enough.  He is awarded "for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents."  It does sound good enough.

But is his writing any good?  I will need to come back to you on this, for I must admit I've never read any of his books.  His editor claimed he's been ignored and implied for being black and African.  I am not too sure about that.  He writes in English and is based in the UK, a few of his books long and short-listed for prizes but never won any, until now, the Holy Grail.

Are literary awards important, even necessary at all?  Who needs the validation?  Who's to judge?  Aren't they also "the effects of colonialism"?  Interesting these questions are raised here within the context of the biggest validation given and received.  Jean-Paul Sartre declined his Nobel, but for everyone else the validation was warmly accepted and sometimes badly needed.

I have yet to read any uncompromisingly and compassionately penetrating novel that imagines a world without colonialism (if it is a world possible at all).  This is more than a historical curiosity to me.  I was born and raise in Hong Kong; the What If? speaks about who I am, which is not necessary at all, if not for the not-so-accidental history that gives validation to what I wouldn't even know possible, available, indispensable.

Yours, Alex