Literary Review
Nobel rot
Theft Abdulrazak Gurnah (Bloomsbury, £18.99)
TO WIN a major literary prize is practically a guarantee of creative sclerosis. How many Booker champions, you wonder, with the possible exceptions of AS Byatt and Hilary Mantel, have improved on the darling work that cemented their reputations?
When it comes to the Nobel Prize for Literature, on the other hand, the sclerosis is usually there to begin with. For this is a lifetime achievement award; compensation for a place on the downward side of the parabola. All of which brings us to Abdulrazak Gurnah, whose first fictional outing this is since he scooped the Nobel garland back in 2021.