Nobel Prize author did not pick literature A-level as it did not feel ‘useful’

Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnah in Canterbury, Kent, after he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature (Steve Parsons/PA) - (PA Archive)

Nobel Prize-winning author Abdulrazak Gurnah has said he did not pick literature as an A-level as it did not feel “useful”.

The Tanzanian author, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2021, was born in 1948 on the island of Zanzibar, now part of Tanzania, and moved to Britain as a refugee in 1968, fleeing a repressive regime that persecuted the Arab Muslim community to which he belonged.