Nobel Prize Literature winner lights up the Sharjah International Book Fair

'My goal is to speak as truthfully and clearly as possible to get the right feel,' says Abdulrazak Gurnah at the Sharjah International Book Fair 2021. Photo: Handout

“I write as well as I can be truthful to the idea I want to put across; to make it beautiful,” said Abdulrazak Gurnah, British Tanzanian writer and novelist and the 2021 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, while speaking to a packed audience at the 40th edition of the Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) that runs until Nov 13 in Expo Centre Sharjah.

Gurnah, whose universal tales of the trauma of exile, loss and uprooted lives has resonated with readers around the globe, said: “My goal is to speak as truthfully and clearly as possible to get the right feel. I can ‘hear’ it in my head if the wording is wrong.”