{"id":94097,"date":"2025-05-20T09:05:24","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T07:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/literaturfestival.com\/events-archive\/abdulrazak-gurnah-the-art-of-writing\/"},"modified":"2025-05-20T09:05:24","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T07:05:24","slug":"abdulrazak-gurnah-the-art-of-writing","status":"publish","type":"events-archive","link":"https:\/\/literaturfestival.com\/en\/events-archive\/abdulrazak-gurnah-the-art-of-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"ABDULRAZAK GURNAH: The Art of Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u00bbWhite Europeans who read Gurnah come to understand their own provinciality.\u00ab [ZEIT] <br\/><br\/>When Abdulrazak Gurnah presented his novel \u00bbAfterlives\u00ab at the ilb in 2022, it became impressively clear how far-reaching \u2013 and how quietly revolutionarily \u2013 his literature reflects historical relations of violence. In \u00bbAfterlives\u00ab, Gurnah explores the entanglement of East African history with German imperialism without moralizing. His novels combine a joy in storytelling with an unpretentious, restrained tone and deep empathy for his protagonists \u2013 often young people searching for their place in the world. \u00bbGurnah lets his characters, and with them the reader, break new ground\u00ab [WELT]. To mark the start of the anniversary, the British-Tanzanian Nobel Prize winner is now returning to the festival. In conversation with author and Bachmann Prize winner Sharon Dodua Otoo, he offers insights into the foundations of his writing, his literary influences, and his worldview. Otoo\u2019s novel \u00bbAdas Raum\u00ab is a radically unconventional work that negotiates memory and history through a layered journey from Ghana in 1459 to present-day Berlin. Together, they discuss recurring themes in Gurnah&#8217;s work: exile and migration, colonial continuities \u2013 and writing as both political and poetic practice. <br\/><em><br\/><\/em><sub>The German book premiere of \u00bbTheft\u00ab, the new novel by Nobel Prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah, is being organized by the Lit:Potsdam literature festival. <br\/>It takes the form of a public reading on 11 September 2025 at 7 pm in the Nikolaisaal, Potsdam. Tickets are available now.<\/sub><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The anniversary program is made possible by the LOTTO Foundation Berlin. <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With Abdulrazak Gurnah, Sharon Dodua Otoo<br\/>Read by Frank Arnold<br\/>Simultaneous translation by Lilian Astrid Geese and Silvia Schreiber<br\/><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The event will be held in English with reading parts in German and simultaneous translation into German. <br\/><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"template":"","tags":[],"jct-program-properties":[808],"jct-ilb-years":[906],"jct-program-categories":[796],"class_list":["post-94097","events-archive","type-events-archive","status-publish","hentry","jct-program-properties-livestream-en","jct-ilb-years-2024-en","jct-program-categories-evening-program"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>ABDULRAZAK GURNAH: The Art of Writing &#8211; international literature festival berlin<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/literaturfestival.com\/en\/events-archive\/abdulrazak-gurnah-the-art-of-writing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ABDULRAZAK GURNAH: The Art of Writing &#8211; international literature festival berlin\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u00bbWhite Europeans who read Gurnah come to understand their own provinciality.\u00ab [ZEIT] When Abdulrazak Gurnah presented his novel \u00bbAfterlives\u00ab at the ilb in 2022, it became impressively clear how far-reaching \u2013 and how quietly revolutionarily \u2013 his literature reflects historical relations of violence. 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