DOI: 10.12688/openreseurope.24572.1 ISSN: 2732-5121

Migrant writing against mangling narratives: On Abdulrazak Gurnah’s use of humour

Ante Andabak
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Abdulrazak Gurnah has dedicated much of his oeuvre – consisting of eleven political novels – to ruminations on the nature of migration and spotlighting the travails of the refugees, as well as to grappling with what it means to move in the latter half of the 20th century from the until-recently colonised periphery into the once-colonial centre. In his novels, the concept of the model minority, exemplified by a migrant who strives to fit in and excel in the prosperous Global North, is repeatedly subverted. Even those characters who have supposedly made it are riven by homesickness and racked with guilt for fleeing in the first place, in addition to having to constantly deal with the not-so-subtle instances of racism in their adopted country. His narratives are also not given to unreflected nostalgia or essentialising discourse about Africa. Gurnah delights in the mixture of different cultures and the beauty that can come of it – as evidenced, among other things, in his intertextual uses of Eastern and Western literature – but is acutely aware that what, at least in part, lay behind these aesthetic wonders were deeply violent and iniquitous endeavours like the spread of religions and colonialisation. Special attention will be drawn to how Gurnah’s use of humour enables his writings to have such dexterity and lightness of touch when dealing with such heavy topics.

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