Directions: Fill in each blank with the word or phrase that best fits the context.
One of the roles of the Nobel Prize for literature is to shine a light on someone who has been less visible than they deserve. That role was 1 this year in the announcement of Abdulrazak Gurnah as winner.
Unlike previous popular recipients living in Britain, he is not a 2 . He could, as he said after the announcement, have reached more readers, but his publications 3 to grant him that. His publisher felt sorry for the fact that he "is one of the greatest living African writers; yet no one has ever 4 him," but with this he did not agree: "I didn't think I was ignored. "
There is a(n) 5 , here, that has to do with who is doing the looking, and what counts as officially being noticed. There is also a point of 6 : calling Gurnah an African writer. In fact, while that seems to broaden horizons, it narrows and distances what he is doing. Gurnah was born in Zanzibar, and left for Britain when he was 18, 7 regional conflicts for what he hoped would be calmer waters, which turned out to be stronger dark current. He has lived in Britain ever since.
He began and stuck to writing to 8 , to himself, of the shock -- of racism, rejection, poverty and loneliness. His ten novels return to it 9 , which begins in 1996's Admiring Silence. His work exists because of Britain as well as Zanzibar; it may 10 both or wholly neither. It arrives out of a(n) 11 of English literature (Gurnah is professor of literature at the University of Kent), and his first language, the rhythms and stories of Islam.
12 , many of the UK's thirteen Nobel-winning writers were born elsewhere as by 2019, 14% of the UK's population were born abroad. People might also be astonished at how many of those countries were once part of the British empire. Gurnah has spoken of how much of the world is still processing the wounds that colonialism 13 , especially the experience of "losing your place in the world" -- where place is not just 14 , but also belonging, status and culture.
In this sense, Gurnah's work, which 15 those who might not have been remembered in history -- shopkeeper, homemakers, students and refugees, could not be more British. But, more importantly, it could not be more universal.
