In this edition we propose you to read the works of Abdulazak Gurnah (1948), the author who has just won the Nobel Prize in Literature, born and raised on the island of Zanzibar (Tanzania), from where he fled in 1967 away from a revolution, willing to form a new life in England and at just 18 years old. His experience as his migrant, inevitably, is in the thousands of written pages, although it should be noted that Gurnah is today an expert in English literature who transmits his knowledge in the university cloisters of that nation.
The award took him by surprise, but the Swedish Academy has us used to those emotions. Gurnah's work delves into the nightmares that give rise to and accompany those who decide to move away from their countries driven by war, famine, mass murder ... and in all the chronicles about this news it is warned, it does not idealize about an Africa idyllic pre-colonial, as reflected in Paraíso (El Aleph publishing house) where he immerses himself in the slave trade in pre-colonial times.
Unfortunately, there are few titles of him translated into Spanish, but there are - we have just mentioned Paraíso - another of his works in Spanish: On the shore, published by Poliedro. Although his native language is Swahili, Gurnah writes in English.
And pure honesty, we recommend it even if we have never read any text of the authorship of it. We recommend it and we recommend it. Right now we are buying the first one that will come to our hands, and if the exercise of going through the pages of it leaves us some bitter taste, we will have the obligation to return to this column warning about our experience. But it's definitely worth it, go for his books.