Nobel Prize-winning Tanzanian-British author Abdulrazak Gurnah is on the cover of the current issue of Kirkus Reviews Magazine.

This is a special issue of the magazine that puts a spotlight on international literature. The issue features reviews, news, booklists, and author Q&As that showcase literature from around the globe, including from Kashmir, Ethiopia, Norway, and Saudi Arabia. It also features profiles on writers Abdulrazak Gurnah, Mayumi Inaba, Leila Boukarim, and Siri Pettersen.

The profile on Abdulrazak Gurnah is this issue’s cover story. Drawing from a conversation with Gurnah, the profile explores the novelist’s inspiration for his latest book Theft, which just came out last week.

Gurnah shares that the kernel that became the novel Theft came from his youth in Zanzibar during the growing movement for independence from the British. He describes an incident from this period in his life in which he witnessed a teenage servant thrown out of the house he worked at and shamed by an accusation of stealing. The injustice of this stayed with Gurnah, and now, some 40 years later, became one of the events in his new work and the inspiration for Badar, one of the novel’s main characters. Gurnah further describes the historical and political context of Theft and the way he understands his characters and their motivations in this context.

Gurnah also offers two book recommendations worth checking out: American writer Percival Everett’s James and French-Rwandan writer Scholastique Mukasonga’s The Barefoot Woman.

The Kirkus Reviews is a prestigious American book reviews magazines founded in 1933. The magazine puts out two issues per month and Kirkus reviews over 10,000 titles annually.

This and recent issues are available to browse for free on their website.