the Nobel Prize for Literature denounces the inhuman response of London and Paris

The criticism will not go unnoticed. The 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature, Abdulrazak Gurnah, denounced, Tuesday, December 7, the character “inhuman” the response of the British and French governments to migrants crossing the Channel to reach the United Kingdom at the risk of their lives.

“There is something quite inhumane, I think, in the response of these two governments”, said at a press conference the 72-year-old writer, awarded in early October for his stories on immigration and colonization. The day after the official presentation of his medal by the Swedish ambassador in London, he criticized in particular the British response, which he admitted to knowing more than the French response.

“It’s quite strange to see the language, the narrative that is constructed against or about these attempted crossings”, he added. This position taken by the writer, born in Zanzibar (Tanzania) and a refugee in England at the end of the 1960s, comes at a time when the British Parliament is in the process of adopting a controversial reform of the right to asylum, after the 27 people died at the end of November, drowned while trying to reach the English coast aboard an inflatable boat. This shipwreck represents the worst migratory drama ever known in the Strait.

Among the measures envisaged by the British Minister of the Interior, Priti Patel, is the highly controversial plan to push the boats back to French waters, which several associations are already ready to take to court. Abdulrazak Gurnah also attacked “to great inequalities” in the response to the coronavirus pandemic between rich and poor countries. “It is tragic for those who are not able to be helped, who die from lack of medicine”, did he declare.