France has an increasing appetite for the work of Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah, whose novels about the brutal impacts of colonialism in Africa, life in exile and endemic racism are a collision of old and new worlds. The Tanzanian-born writer and academic drew on his own experiences as a boy of mixed Arab and African heritage, and later a teenaged refugee in Britain, to give life to his intrepid characters. Three of his 10 novels have been translated into French.
Gurnah spoke to Catherine Fruchon-Toussaint on RFI's book show Littérature sans Frontières. The interview has been edited for clarity.
