Cover news reporter Zhang Jie
Every October, who the Nobel Laureate is, it can be called a collective guess blind box. On the evening of October 7, 2021, the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature was announced in Sweden: Bühler Razak Gürner. As soon as the news spread, many people did not know what the writer, who was born on a small island off the coast of East Africa and immigrated to britain, wrote and what the characteristics of his work were.
Gurna receives medals and certificates (photography by ADRIAN DENNIS, courtesy of publisher)
In August 2022, less than a year after Gulner won the Nobel Prize, Shanghai Translation Publishing House announced that the first five masterpieces of Gulner's works, "Heaven", "Afterlife", "Praise for Silence", "The Last Gift", Chinese and "The Seaside", have been published, and pre-sales will be opened today (August 25). Five other works: "Parting Memories", "Pilgrim's Road", "Doti", "Abandoned", and "Gravel Heart" will also meet readers in the near future. Gulner also sent a greeting video from his British home to Chinese readers, and fully affirmed the efforts of the Shanghai Translation Publishing House. "The binding design is extremely elaborate, and I am very satisfied."
According to the publishing house, 50,000 sets of works have been sent from printing factories to online and offline bookstores across the country, and it is expected to achieve full stock in early September. At that time, the e-book version of Gulner's works will also be available on major e-book platforms. Chinese readers can read Gulner's works while looking forward to the announcement of this year's Nobel Prize in Literature.
Translating, reviewing, proofreading, and printing Five of Gurna's novels in just 10 months was no easy task. From participating in the bidding, to obtaining full rights to translate Gulner's works, to completing the task two months ahead of schedule, the working group was racing against time every day. In order to grandly launch the author's works, the publishing house has launched the "Limited Edition of Colored Edges on Canvas" on August 22 at the Tmall flagship store of Shanghai Translation Publishing House for readers to book and collect.
Gurna was born in 1948 on the island of Zanzibar off the coast of East Africa. It is a small island full of charm, and the fusion of multiple cultures is a major feature here; It is also a small island full of turmoil, after decades of British rule and brief independence, Zanzibar merged with Tanganyika in 1964 to form Tanzania.
In 1968, Gurna went to england as a refugee and began to write about his feelings of wandering away from home in a diary in the following years. These contents gradually evolved into fictional stories about other people, eventually forming his debut novel, Memories of Parting.
It can be said that the moving features of Gurna's works are closely related to his own personal experience and complex emotions about his homeland. The cruel past of his hometown ethnic group kept flashing, forcing him to go back and forth. As a result, "memory", "refugees", "identity", "cruelty", "love" and "weakness" have become the consistent themes of Gürner's works. He constructs his own literary world like a jigsaw puzzle, constantly picking up every separatist and foreigner, summoning and pursuing the memories of his homeland and other places buried in the depths of his soul. In 2021, Gürna won the Nobel Prize in Literature for "uncompromising and compassionate insight into the impact of colonialism and the fate of refugees in the gulf between different cultures and continents." It is this deep concern for the wandering hearts of foreigners and the profound exploration of the crisis of immigrant identity that allows Gurna's works to touch every wandering heart across races and countries.
Although Gulner has always written around the memory of his homeland, the theme of his work is not the same, but can bring readers a rich cultural imagination and emotional experience. Of the first five of Gürna's works published, Heaven and The Afterlife trace the story of Zanzibar's ancestors, and readers can read them as coming-of-age novels. Published in 1994, "Heaven" is one of Gurna's masterpieces, the author uses the perspective of youth without world events and filters, telling the difficult growth path of individuals embedded in the background of social turmoil and historical change, in order to "strive to preserve that memory, retrieve the moments and stories on which people live and recognize themselves"; "The Afterlife" is Gurna's latest work published in 2020, in the shadow of colonization, the protagonists began to read and write by chance, determined to escape from their homeland and original family, and pursue a wider world.
"The Seaside" is one of the works that best reflects Gurna's concern for the situation of refugees, especially the refugee groups in the cracks between different cultures. The novel uncovers the reasons for the protagonist Omar's departure from home in a multi-perspective narrative, piecing together memories ranging from family feuds to colonial independence history and placing them in the grand social picture of the times. "By the Sea" was shortlisted for the 2001 Booker Prize.
"Praise for Silence" and "The Last Gift" can be seen as sister chapters, focusing on the identity crisis encountered by two generations of immigrants and trying to explore where the way out is. In "Praise silence", the protagonist has been trying to integrate into the new life of the British city for more than 20 years, trying to please everyone, but living physically and mentally exhausted - on the one hand, it is a hometown that can never go back, on the other hand, it is a place that is incompatible, in a dilemma, and all hopes eventually become "disappointed love". "The Last Gift" continues to write about the loneliness and struggle of the wanderer, but in this book, the protagonist finally makes his voice heard.
Gurna repeatedly walked into every wandering mind, trying to answer the question of whether the hometown should be the past or the future? This is the question that plagues the minds of every modern person.
[If you have a news thread, please report to us, once adopted, there is a fee reward.] Feed WeChat attention: ihxdsb, feed QQ: 3386405712]