Gurnah was awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fates of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents".

[6] He left the island, which later became part of Tanzania, at the age of 18 following the overthrow of the ruling Arab elite in the Zanzibar Revolution,[3][1] arriving in England in 1968 as a refugee.

[10] He then moved to the University of Kent, where he earned his PhD with a thesis titled Criteria in the Criticism of West African Fiction,[11] in 1982.

This first book set the stage for his ongoing exploration of the themes of "the lingering trauma of colonialism, war and displacement" throughout his subsequent novels, short stories and critical essays.

He has said that he had to push back against publishers to continue this practice and they would have preferred to "italicize or Anglicise Swahili and Arabic references and phrases in his books".

[12] As academic Hamid Dabashi notes, Gurnah "is integral to the manner in which Asian and African migratory and diasporic experiences have enriched and altered English language and literature.

Calling authors like Gurnah diasporic, exilic, or any other such self-alienating term conceals the fact that English was native to him even before he set foot in England.

"[19] Consistent themes run through Gurnah's writing, including exile, displacement, belonging, colonialism and broken promises by the state.

[24] Felicity Hand suggests that Gurnah's novels Admiring Silence (1996), By the Sea (2001) and Desertion (2005) all concern "the alienation and loneliness that emigration can produce and the soul-searching questions it gives rise to about fragmented identities and the very meaning of 'home'.

"[12] Aiming to build the readership for Gurnah's writing in Tanzania, the first translator of his novels into Swahili, academic Dr Ida Hadjivayanis of the School of Oriental and African Studies, has said: "I think if his work could be read in East Africa it would have such an impact.

"[27] Gurnah edited three and a half volumes of Essays on African Writing and has published articles on a number of contemporary postcolonial writers, including V. S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, and Zoë Wicomb.

[37] On 7 October 2021, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2021 "for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fates of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents".