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Top 15 Abdulrazak Gurnah Quotes (2026 Update)

Abdulrazak Gurnah Quote: “I speak to maps. And sometimes they something back to me. This is not as strange as it sounds, nor is it an unheard of thing. Before maps, the world was limitless. It was maps that gave it shape and made it seem like territory, like something that could be possessed, not just laid waste and plundered. Maps made places on the edges of the imagination seem graspable and placable.”

1. “I speak to maps. And sometimes they something back to me. This is not as strange as it sounds, nor is it an unheard of thing. Before maps, the world was limitless. It was maps that gave it shape and made it seem like territory, like something that could be possessed, not just laid waste and plundered. Maps made places on the edges of the imagination seem graspable and placable.”

— Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abdulrazak Gurnah Quote: “That’s the way life takes us,′ Elleke once said. ‘It takes us like this, then it turns us over and takes us like that.’ What she didn’t say was that through it all we manage to cling to something that makes sense.”

2. “That’s the way life takes us,′ Elleke once said. ‘It takes us like this, then it turns us over and takes us like that.’ What she didn’t say was that through it all we manage to cling to something that makes sense.”

— Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abdulrazak Gurnah Quote: “You have to talk about the things that cause you pain.”

3. “You have to talk about the things that cause you pain.”

— Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abdulrazak Gurnah Quote: “Don’t fear the dark places in your mind, otherwise rage will blacken your sight.”

4. “Don’t fear the dark places in your mind, otherwise rage will blacken your sight.”

— Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abdulrazak Gurnah Quote: “What is the point of literature? I think that the person who asks that question will not find my answer convincing anyway.”

5. “What is the point of literature? I think that the person who asks that question will not find my answer convincing anyway.”

— Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abdulrazak Gurnah Quote: “Life’s like that, clinging futilely to the very objects that imprison us.”

6. “Life’s like that, clinging futilely to the very objects that imprison us.”

— Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abdulrazak Gurnah Quote: “I am a refugee, an asylum-seeker. These are not simple words, even if habit of hearing them makes them seem so.”

7. “I am a refugee, an asylum-seeker. These are not simple words, even if habit of hearing them makes them seem so.”

— Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abdulrazak Gurnah Quote: “We were strolling along the waterfront, his favourite walk, going nowhere in particular, the postcolonial condition.”

8. “We were strolling along the waterfront, his favourite walk, going nowhere in particular, the postcolonial condition.”

— Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abdulrazak Gurnah Quote: “They wanted to glory in grievance, in promises of vengeance, in their past oppression, in their present poverty and in the nobility of their darker skins.”

9. “They wanted to glory in grievance, in promises of vengeance, in their past oppression, in their present poverty and in the nobility of their darker skins.”

— Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abdulrazak Gurnah Quote: “I’m not perfect. I’m unfulfilled.”

10. “I’m not perfect. I’m unfulfilled.”

— Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abdulrazak Gurnah Quote: “And at school there was little or no time for those other stories, just an orderly accumulation of the real knowledge they brought to us, in books they made available to us, in a language they taught us.”

11. “And at school there was little or no time for those other stories, just an orderly accumulation of the real knowledge they brought to us, in books they made available to us, in a language they taught us.”

— Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abdulrazak Gurnah Quote: “No,’ I said, ’nothing like that. Just a lot of bits and pieces to sort out, bits of life.”

12. “No,’ I said, ’nothing like that. Just a lot of bits and pieces to sort out, bits of life.”

— Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abdulrazak Gurnah Quote: “But I am so afraid of disturbing this fragile silence.”

13. “But I am so afraid of disturbing this fragile silence.”

— Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abdulrazak Gurnah Quote: “Before maps the world was limitless. It was maps that gave it shape and made it seem like territory, like something that could be possessed, not just laid waste and plundered. Maps made places on the edges of the imagination seem graspable and placable. And later when it became necessary, geography became biology in order to construct a hierarchy in which to place the people who lived in their inaccessibility and.”

14. “Before maps the world was limitless. It was maps that gave it shape and made it seem like territory, like something that could be possessed, not just laid waste and plundered. Maps made places on the edges of the imagination seem graspable and placable. And later when it became necessary, geography became biology in order to construct a hierarchy in which to place the people who lived in their inaccessibility and.”

— Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abdulrazak Gurnah Quote: “I’m afraid, you’re right... though not only of them. We’ll lose everything, including the way we live,′ Hussein said. ‘And these young people will lose even more. One day they’ll make them spit on all that we know, and will make them recite their laws and their story of the world as if it were the holy word. When they come to write about us, what will they say? That we made slaves.”

15. “I’m afraid, you’re right... though not only of them. We’ll lose everything, including the way we live,′ Hussein said. ‘And these young people will lose even more. One day they’ll make them spit on all that we know, and will make them recite their laws and their story of the world as if it were the holy word. When they come to write about us, what will they say? That we made slaves.”

— Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abdulrazak Gurnah Quote: “They can lock you up, put you in chains, abuse all your small longings, but freedom is not something they can take away. When they have finished with you, they are still as far away from owning you as they were on the day you were born.”

16. “They can lock you up, put you in chains, abuse all your small longings, but freedom is not something they can take away. When they have finished with you, they are still as far away from owning you as they were on the day you were born.”

— Abdulrazak Gurnah

Abdulrazak Gurnah Quote: “It was later, when she was in her old bed in the dark, that the shock of it sank in. He was gone, and she was on her own with the child. She would never find happiness again. There was a pain sitting like a lump in her chest, a proper presence, and an anxious charge like a current through her limbs. Her ears hummed as she lay trembling in the dark, and for the first time in that long day her tears flowed. It felt as if love had fled from her forever.”

17. “It was later, when she was in her old bed in the dark, that the shock of it sank in. He was gone, and she was on her own with the child. She would never find happiness again. There was a pain sitting like a lump in her chest, a proper presence, and an anxious charge like a current through her limbs. Her ears hummed as she lay trembling in the dark, and for the first time in that long day her tears flowed. It felt as if love had fled from her forever.”

— Abdulrazak Gurnah

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