Limited Time Offer
Premium members can get their quote collection automatically imported into their Quotewise collections.
For centuries, Britain has been torn between offering asylum and xenophobia to those who have presented themselves in desperation; on average asylum … - Abdulrazak Gurnah
" "For centuries, Britain has been torn between offering asylum and xenophobia to those who have presented themselves in desperation; on average asylum prevailed and has resulted in many gains for British culture. In this, as well as in understanding the circumstances that lie behind refugee desperation, history and patience lead us not to paralysis but to a knowledge of our better selves.
English
Collect this quote
About Abdulrazak Gurnah
Abdulrazak Gurnah (born 20 December 1948) is a Tanzanian-born British novelist and academic. He was born in the Sultanate of Zanzibar and moved to the United Kingdom in the 1960s as a refugee during the Zanzibar Revolution. His novels include Paradise (1994), which was shortlisted for both the Booker and the Whitbread Prize; By the Sea (2001), which was longlisted for the Booker and shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and Desertion (2005), shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Gurnah was awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fates of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents". He is Emeritus Professor of English and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Kent.
Also Known As
Native Name:
عبد الرزاق سالم قرنح
Alternative Names:
Gurnah
•
Abdulrazak S. Gurnah
•
Abdul Razzaq Gurnah
•
Abd al-Razzaq Journa
Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.
Additional quotes by Abdulrazak Gurnah
"The curious thing, of course, is the person presiding over this is herself somebody who would have come here, or her parents would have come here, to confront those attitudes themselves." What would he say to her if she were here now? “I would say, ‘Maybe a little more compassion might not be a bad thing.’ But I don’t want to get into a dialogue with Priti Patel, really.”
Recently the things that I’ve enjoyed reading are writers from Africa, like Maaza Mengiste, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor. These are people who are doing brilliantly well I think, and in both of those cases, they’ve just published their second novels. So very early in their writing careers. But also I admire writers like J.M. Coetzee, Nuruddin Farah, Michael Ondaatje, I can name several.
Loading...