Abdulrazak Gurnah: A Reappraisal

Le colloque "Abdulrazak Gurnah: A Reappraisal" se tiendra à l'Université de Lille les 9 et 10 octobre 2025 (organisé par Cédric Courtois, Université de Lille et Mélanie Joseph-Vilain, Université Bourgogne Europe). 

Un grand nombre des communications porteront sur le roman Paradise, au programme de l'Agrégation externe (option "Littérature").

Le colloque se tiendra en hybride sur Zoom : lien sur demande. 
 

Programme

Thursday October 9, 2025

8h30: Welcome & coffee

9h: Opening: Cédric Courtois ( Université de Lille) & Mélanie Joseph-Vilain (Université Bourgogne-Europe )

9h15-10h15: Keynote Lecture: Tina Steiner (Stellenbosch University) [Chair: Mélanie Joseph-Vilain ]

“Capacious Worlds: Situating Paradise in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Life & Œuvre”

10h15-10h30: Coffee break

10h30-12h15: Panel 1: “Paradise in Context” (Chair: Ida Hadjivayanis )

- Delphine Froment (Université de Lorraine): “‘East Africa on the Brink of the 20 th Century: Political, Socio-Economic, and Cultural Shifts under Colonial Rule”

- Christine Lorre (Université de Caen): “Webs of Empire in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Paradise (1994)”

- Maëlle Jeanniard Du Dot (Université de Rennes 2): “The Implac(e)ability of Place in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s By the Sea (2001) and Paradise (1994)”

12h15-13h15: Lunch break

13h15-15h: Panel 2: “Affects in Gurnah’s Œuvre” (Chair: Élodie Raimbault-Luizard )

- Emmanuel Kilatu (University of Dodoma): “Examining the Panoramic View of Gurnah’s Paradise : A Focus on Individual Characters’ Aspired and Achieved ‘Paradises’” [Zoom]

- Vanessa Guignery (ENS Lyon): “‘Laugh[ing] now before life knots you up’: The Poetics of Laughter in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Paradise ”

- Cédric Courtois (Université de Lille): “‘Yusuf sighed heavily, shamed by his failure and dishonour’: Poetics and Politics of Shame in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Paradise (1994) and Theft (2025)”

15h-15h15: Coffee break

15h15-17h30: Panel 3: “Re-reading and Re-Telling (Colonialism) in Gurnah’s work” (Chair: Christine Lorre )

- Mélanie Joseph-Vilain (Université Bourgogne-Europe): “Performing and Interpreting Identities in Paradise ”

- Sandeep Bakshi (Université Paris Cité): “‘Swear loyalty to the German sultan’: De-authorising the Precolonial/Colonial Divide in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Paradise ”

- Nina Berman (Arizona State University) and Rachel Muchira (Universität Leipzig): “The Other Stories: East African Voices on German colonialism in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Paradise and Afterlives ” [Zoom]


Friday October 10, 2025

9h-10h: Keynote Lecture: Maria Olaussen (University of Gothenburg) [Chair: Vanessa Guignery]

“‘There was something I needed to say’: Moments of Learning in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Fiction”

10h00-10h15: Coffee break

10h15-12h: Panel 4: “Materiality in Paradise ” (Chair: Guillaume Cingal )

- Élodie Raimbault-Luizard (Université Grenoble Alpes): “Goods, Dogs and Men in Paradise. Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Postcolonial Poetics of Materiality”

- Kerry-Jane Wallart (Université d’Orléans): “Slavery, Exploitation and Extractivism: Reading Paradise through the Prism of Decolonial Ecology”

- Jaine Chemmachery (Sorbonne Université): “ ‘Time cheats all of us like that’: Time as Writing Matter in A. Gurnah’s Paradise (1994)”

12h-13h30: Lunch break (CROUS)

13h30-15h15: Panel 6: “Gurnah in Translation” (Chair: Jaine Chemmachery )

- Ida Hadjivayanis (SOAS, University of London): “‘Why do wa have so many uncles?’ Navigating Choice in Translating Abdulrazak Gurnah”

- Nathalie Carré (INALCO): “‘Kurudi nyumbani’: Reflections on a Return to the Native Land. The Swahili Translation of Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah”

- Guillaume Cingal (Université de Tours): “Translation, Plurilingualism and German(y) as Everywhere Ghost in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Paradise ”

15h15-15h30: Coffee break

15h30-16h45: Panel 6: “Worldly Gurnah” (Chair: Kerry-Jane Wallart )

- Charne Lavery (University of Pretoria): “Worldly Africa: Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Paradise Rewrites African Histories as Global Histories” [Zoom]

- Erik Falk (Uppsala University): “The Global Dissemination of Abdulrazak Gurnah” [Zoom]

16h45-17h00: Closing words.