Novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah, a writer and academic from Zanzibar, Tanzania, who now lives in the U.K., was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in early October. Gurnah became just the fourth Black writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and one of a very small number of Black people to win any of the Nobel Prizes. According to the Nobel website, 943 individuals and 25 organizations have been awarded Nobel Prizes since the honor was first bestowed in 1901. Of those 943 people, only 17 have been Black, representing less than 2% of total prize winners. Twelve of the Black winners have won the Nobel Peace Prize, while there have been four Black winners of the prize in literature and one in economics. No Black person has ever won any of the science-based Nobel Prizes (physiology or medicine, physics, and chemistry). An article published a few years ago in The Conversation broke down the reasons for the lack of Black representation in the Nobel science categories. The article...