How do Gurnah's novels relate to current refugee crises?
The sea remembers everything, and it carries stories of passage and displacement across vast distances. The experiences I explore in novels like *By the Sea*, the arduous journeys, the search for safety and belonging, the profound sense of loss that accompanies exile – these are not confined to a specific historical moment. They are, tragically, threads that run through human history and continue to resonate powerfully today. The question of what it means to be uprooted, to arrive in a new place carrying the weight of the past, to be seen and unseen, these are enduring human predicaments that my work seeks to illuminate through the lived realities of individuals.
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