【推荐1】The Swedish Academy announced on Thursday, 7 October that the Nobel Prize in Literature 2021 is awarded to Abdulrazak Gurnah. The 73-year-old author of 10 novels including well-renowned works such as Paradiseand, Desertion, received 10 million Swedish crowns.

After getting the award, Gurnah not only said he was grateful to the academy but added, “It’s just great-it’s just a big prize, and such a huge list of wonderful writers-I am still taking it in. . . I really had to wait until I heard it announced before I could believe it. ”

Born in 1948, Gurnah mainly grew up on the island of Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean. Gurnah was forced to leave his family and his country in December 1963 just because he belonged to the victimized(受害的)ethnic group, Then he arrived in England as a refugee(难民)at the end of the 1960s, Until his recent retirement, he has been the Professor of English Literature at the University of Kent in Canterbury and he mainly focused on writers including Wole Soyinka and Salman Rushdie. In total he has published 10 novels along with short stories. The Royal Academy has noted that the theme of the refugee’s suffering runs throughout Gurnah’s work.

While Swahili was his first language, English became his tool for literature. His first novel was Memory of Departure in 1987 and it is about the failed uprising in the African continent. His second work Pilgrims Way was published in 1988 in which the newest Nobel winner explored the various reality of life in exile. His third novel was Dottie in 1990 which is a portrait of a Black woman with immigrant background. His other works include Paradise in 1994. Admiring Silence in 1996, Gravel Heart in 2017. His latest novel is Afterlives which was published in 2020 and it takes up where Paradise ends. “I just want to write as trustfully as I can, without trying to say something noble, ”he said. One big difference between human laughs and animal laughs is that humans laugh much more loudly. Most sounds animals make during play are very quiet so they can only be heard by the animal they are playing with. But for humans, loud laughter is a sign that we’re part of a group. It’s really fascinating that so many animals use sounds during play. And those sounds are for reasons similar to why humans make sounds.

【推荐2】Football is my favorite sport. I loved to watch it, but I had never played in a football game before I went to college. I lacked self－confidence and I doubted if I could do well in a team, which was why I hardly did sports together with others. I just loved practicing playing football in the backyard of my house.

About one month after I went to college, one day some of my classmates said they'd play a football game with some players of another class. I really looked forward to it but never thought I'd join them to play. That day finally came and I went to watch with my classmates. However, just about ten minutes after the game started, one member of our football team got injured and could no longer play. The other members looked worried. Then one of them came to me and asked, “Can you play?” At first, I shook my head, but then I nodded. “Great! Come and play,” he said. I followed him, having no idea at all what to do. To my joy, he asked me to play in defense (防守). Defense was my favorite because I found it more fun and less complicated (复杂的). Then the game began again. There weren't a lot of big kids on the offensive line (攻击线) of the other team and I suddenly gained some self－confidence. About five minutes later, the ball was kicked toward the guard. I thought it was a good opportunity for me. I quickly ran past the guard and got the ball. When the guard came to the offensive line, I kicked the ball. I scored and all my classmates cheered. You may not believe it, but I scored twice that time. The final score was 6—2 and we won. My teammates thought that I did very well and none of them believed I hadn't played in a game before.

That game really changed me. I am a really confident person now and often play football games with my teammates.

【推荐3】Growing up, I remember my father as a silent, serious man — not the sort of person around whom one could laugh. As a teenager arriving in America, knowing nothing, I wanted a father who could explain the human journey. In college, when friends called home for advice, I would sink into deep depression for what I did not have.

Today, at twenty-seven, I have come to rediscover them in ways that my teenage mind would not allow — as adults and as friends with their own faults and weaknesses.

One night after my move back home, I overheard my father on the telephone. There was some trouble. Later, Dad shared the problem with me. Apparently my legal training had earned me some privileges(特权) in his eyes. I talked through the problem with Dad, analyzing the purposes of the people involved and offering several negotiation skills. He listened patiently before finally admitting, “I can’t think like that. I am a simple man.”

Dad is a brilliant scientist who can deconstruct(解构)the building blocks of nature. Yet human nature is a mystery to him. That night I realized that he was simply not skilled at dealing with people, much less the trouble of a conflicted teenager. It’s not in his nature to understand human desires.

And so, there it was — it was no one’s fault that my father held no interest in human lives while I placed great importance on them. We are at times born more sensitive, wide-eyed, and dreamy than our parents and become more curious and idealistic than them. Dad perhaps never expected me for a child. And I, who knew Dad as an intelligent man, had never understood that his intelligence did not cover all of my feelings.

It has saved me years of questioning and confusion. I now see my parents as people who have other relationships than just Father and Mother. I now ignore their many faults and weaknesses, which once annoyed me.

I now know my parents as friends: people who ask me for advice; people who need my support and understanding. And I’ve come to see my past clearly.