LANGUAGE IN INDIA

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Volume 26:7 July 2026
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Reimagining Inclusivity: Abdulrazak Gurnah's Novels in the Context of Education, Sustainability and Technology

Ritashree Pal

Abstract

This paper intends to examine the intersections of literature, education, sustainability, and technology in Abdulrazak Gurnah's novels – how his fictions promote inclusivity and interdisciplinary dialogue. Gurnah's stories set against the backdrop of slavery, colonialism, genocide, forced migration and cultural displacement demand enquiry into the issues of identity, un-belonging and belonging, cultural appropriation, and social and human rights, and political justice and education and technology as a means of upward mobility. Applying qualitative theoretical framework and critical discourse analysis as its methodology, this paper will engage in a close study of his texts including Paradise (1994), By the Sea (2001), and Theft (2025) to bring out the inclusivity, and diversity which also informs most of his other works of fiction. The study will attempt to show how Gurnah's novels, Paradise (1994) and By the Sea (2001) in particular, through its accurate presentation of social realities – injustice, race and gender discrimination, othering, can reshape pedagogical practices through critical rethinking of human relationships, empathy for the 'other', in diverse cultural and geographical situations. The paper will also seek to examine to what extent cross-cultural dialogue and sustainable development are possible with the help of fast developing new learning tools and highlight Gurnah's story-telling forte, its representation of marginalized voices like Badar and Fauzia in Theft (2025) demanding social justice. The key findings would suggest that Gurnah's fictions facilitate insights into how modern society and nation function in a post-colonial and neo-colonial world, highlighting the need for course correction and cultural exchange through dialogue in a world shaped by migration.

Keywords:inclusivity, interdisciplinary dialogue, identity, sustainability, digital technology

Introduction

On the subject of exile, Edward Said had commented that while exile demands a lot of thinking, to experience it is terrible. Gurnah himself emigrated to the UK in the late 1960s in the wake of a genocide of Arab community to which he belonged by the Black African Bantu community. So, he is deeply aware of the trauma and pain that a refugee in exile has to undergo in an alien land, more so if it is a white land with racist outlook. On the one hand, there is the pain of forced separation from the homeland. On the other hand, there is the insult of being treated as an unwanted outsider in the host land. Gurnah's major diaspora novels with dual settings – Zanzibar and England - portray characters who carry in them a feeling of alienation, dislocation, belonging, and un-belonging. Omar Saleh in By the Sea (2001) carries this trauma inside him. Belonging to an Arab family that has its roots in Zanzibar for centuries, he now finds himself an outsider in his nation. And in his adopted country he is an outsider. There is another major strand in Gurnah's novel – slave trade and slavery, an offshoot of Indian Ocean trade between India, Arab countries, and Zanzibar best seen in Paradise (1994) Gurnah is a critique of both inhuman slave trade that the Arabs forced on Black Africans and ethnic cleansing of Arabs in Zanzibar. Besides, one cannot also miss the experience of coloured immigrants in white land. Gurnah's hugely critical but at the same time sympathetic presentation of these social issues makes his novels extremely relevant in academic and social discourse. His novels are not just historical documents of social transition in Zanzibar, his homeland, in the last hundred years from Arab rule to German occupation, to British colonization, and finally after a bloody Revolution of 1964, a nation taking baby steps towards a consumerist society modern methods of education – namely computers and digital technology opening up new opportunities for young people like Badar in his last novel Theft (2025) In a world torn by war, intolerance, and nuclear threats, in societies divided by race and ethnic strife, Gurnah's novel imperceptibly educate readers about the need for harmonious living.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Ritashree Pal
Assistant Professor
Postgraduate and Research Department of English
St. Xavier's College (Autonomous), Kolkata
ritashreepal@sxccal.edu
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