The felicitation of Nobel laureate in Literature Abdulrazak Gurnah, a renowned writer from the Indian Ocean world, as the second recipient of the International Bing Xin Literature Award, is a great example of how Africa and China are linking up via the Indian Ocean space and how we at King’s are uniquely poised to support and learn from these changing geopolitics.
Professor Ananya Jahanara Kabir FBA, Professor of English Literature
15 July 2025
Gurnah receives International Bing Xin Literature Award at King's
Abdulrazak Gurnah received the International Bing Xin Literature Award, presented by Professor Ananya Jahanara Kabir FBA from the Department of English at a ceremony on 28 June at King’s.
Gurnah, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2021, sets his novels in the Indian Ocean world. Using the region’s complex history and blend of cultures, Gurnah explores themes of colonialism, memory, displacement and migration in his work.
Professor Kabir highlighted how Gurnah's fiction weaves together intimacy, materiality, memory, and the layered histories of the Indian Ocean world, transforming personal narratives into resonant stories of displacement and belonging.
During an on-stage dialogue, Gurnah and Professor Kabir explored the role of objects, furniture, spices, silks, as vessels of memory and cultural transmission in Gurnah's work. He spoke of fiction not as grand theory but as something rooted in everyday observations and emotional truths.
The dialogue offered a deeply human and cross-cultural moment, showing how literature can trace shared histories across continents and speak to the universal longing for home, connection, and understanding.
Ziyang Li, PhD student
Ziyang Li, PhD student in the Department of English, is visiting King’s for a year under the King’s-China Scholarship Council PhD scholarship programme. She was part of the organisation committee and informally interviewed Gurnah with Professor Kabir for her own research before the awards ceremony.
In our conversation, Professor Gurnah reflected on how fiction returns to the fragments of life, capturing what people cannot always say. His focus on memory, diaspora and the unspoken resonates with Chinese readers, and with Bing Xin’s enduring belief that truth, beauty, and love lie at the heart of literature. As she once wrote, ‘With love, there is everything.’ As a Chinese researcher working across cultures, I found this dialogue especially meaningful – a quiet moment where memory and empathy met across continents.
Ziyang Li, PhD student
Building relationships with Chinese institutions
The International Bing Xin Literature Award ceremony was organised by the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) at King’s and spearheaded by Baiyu Liu, President Elect of KCLSU and the first Chinese person to hold this office. Bayiu Liu acted as Gurnah's guide and translator during his time in London.
At a dinner the night before the ceremony, award-winning Chinese artist Muyao Li presented Gurnah and Professor Kabir with paintings titled 'A Woman in Qipao' and 'London Tower Bridge' respectively.
I was delighted to be given the opportunity to represent King's as President Elect of the Students' Union to introduce Professor Kabir and Professor Gurnah to Chinese literary giants. They discussed the situation in the Indian Ocean region with the Chinese academics, authors and committee members of the various Chinese literature associations of Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen, especially in regards to the importance of mutual cooperation and bridge building between China and the West.
Baiyu Liu, President Elect of KCLSU
At the event, Professor Kabir also received the Academic Monograph Prize for her outstanding scholarly work on the Indian Ocean World.
Through her research, Professor Kabir has visited NYU Shanghai for a conference on port cities and infrastructure in the Indian Ocean world. She will further discuss these topics at an invited visit to Peking University in September in relation to their large Indian Ocean literature project.
During the past few years, I have been working proactively to build up research and pedagogic links with mainland China given the increasing number of postgraduate students from China within Arts and Humanities departments at King’s. This event was a fantastic opportunity to showcase the ways in which we are ahead of the game with our student intake from China.
Professor Ananya Jahanara Kabir FBA, Professor of English Literature
The award is named after Bing Xin, a leading twentieth-century writer from China with connections to the Bloomsbury Group and King’s alumna Virginia Woolf.
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Professor of English Literature