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M. G. Vassanji
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Amriikaby M. G. VassanjiISBN 077108725X (0-7710-8725-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Amriika'Book summary:M.G. Vassanji's Amriika, as the title suggests, is a novel of the immigrant's New World, but its relevance extends deep into mainstream culture. Like Vassanji's other novels, such as The Gunny Sack and the Giller Prize-winning The Book of Secrets, Amriika is a story about Vassanji's own community, Indians from East Africa who have immigrated to North America. Ramji, Vassanji's hero, leaves Dar es Salaam for Boston in the late 1960s, ostensibly to pursue a degree in physics at a university known as the Tech. Rather than quietly pursuing a brilliant academic career, Ramji falls into the activist politics of the day, although his skeptical liberalism is never fully accepted by the no-questions-allowed nucleus of the radical left. Through the '70s and '80s, Ramji's political life grows quiet, until a beautiful young woman and an old mentor from Tanzania draw him back into the fold--this time on the staff of a radical Islamic political journal. Eventually, Ramji finds himself sheltering a naive young terrorist, while facing a plethora of ethical questions about his own political history.
Amriika was published in 1999, but the uncomfortable questions it raises have only become more relevant. Vassanji's presentation of the hippie mainstream and radical Islam as closely related streams of activism is potentially incendiary, and, while his craftsmanship is sometimes rough and his symbolism often heavy-handed, Amriika is an important book, one that offers a perspective on Islam's relations with the West that seldom appears outside of the alternative press. --Jack Illingworth [via]
The Assassin's Songby M. G. VassanjiISBN 038566351X (0-385-66351-X)
Hardcover, Doubleday Canada, Limited
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The Book of Secretsby M. G. VassanjiISBN 0312150687 (0-312-15068-7)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Book of Secrets'Book summary:Winner of the first Giller Prize for Canadian fiction in 1994, The Book of Secrets is an outstanding historical novel set in East Africa. The best of M.G. Vassanji's early novels, it transforms the history of South Asians in Kenya and Tanzania from 1913 to 1988 into an elegantly written and totally absorbing narrative that is part love story, part war story, part mystery, part national history, and part journey of self-discovery.
When retired history teacher Pius Fernandes finds the 1913 diary of Alfred Corbin, a British colonial officer, he vows to tell the story of the slim, brittle book and its owners over the years. Pius vividly recreates the colonial world of the inexperienced Corbin and the fragile Indian-African community under his rule. In atmospheric prose rich in local colour, Vassanji imagines a cast of varied and convincing characters, from the tough-talking spy Maynard and the spiritual leader Jamali to the mysterious and tragic beauty Mariamu and the jet-setting movie-star look-alikes Ali and Rita. At the heart of the story are the feisty shopkeeper Pipa and his son Aku (whose true father is the central secret in The Book of Secrets). Pius's research eventually leads him to tell his own story of immigration and longing, and finally to a re-evaluation of who he is. Straddling the colonial and the post-independence eras, The Book of Secrets compassionately explores the ambiguous identities of Indian and British migrants in East Africa. In the process it puts a very human face on a little-known side of Africa's tempestuous past, as well as asking searching questions about the ways in which history is gathered and told and to whom history's stories really belong. --John C. Ball [via]
More editions of The Book of Secrets:
- The Book of Secrets: ISBN 0771087217 (0-7710-8721-7)
Softcover, McClelland & Stewart - The Book of Secrets: A Novel: ISBN 0333638395 (0-333-63839-5)
Hardcover, Macmillan Publishers Limited - The Book of Secrets: ISBN 0771087292 (0-7710-8729-2)
Hardcover, McClelland & Stewart - The Book of Secrets : A Novel: ISBN 0330344013 (0-330-34401-3)
Softcover, Pan Macmillan - The Book of Secrets: ISBN 0771087195 (0-7710-8719-5)
Softcover, McClelland & Stewart Ltd - The Book of Secrets: ISBN 0312140835 (0-312-14083-5)
Hardcover, St Martins Pr - The Book of Secrets: ISBN 0312150687 (0-312-15068-7)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
- The Book of Secrets: ISBN 0771087217 (0-7710-8721-7)
Elvis, Raja: Storiesby M. G. VassanjiISBN 0143099787 (0-14-309978-7)
Hardcover, Penguin Books
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The Gunny Sackby M. G. VassanjiISBN 0385660650 (0-385-66065-0)
Softcover, Doubleday Canada, Limited
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The Heinemann Book of Contemporary African Short Storiesby M. G. VassanjiISBN 043590566X (0-435-90566-X)
Softcover, Heinemann
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The In-Between World of Vikram Lallby M. G. VassanjiISBN 140004216X (1-4000-4216-X)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The In-Between World of Vikram Lall'More editions of The In-Between World of Vikram Lall:
- The In-Between World of Vikram Lall: ISBN 0385659911 (0-385-65991-1)
Softcover, Doubleday Canada, Limited - The In-Between World of Vikram Lall: ISBN 0385659903 (0-385-65990-3)
Hardcover, Doubleday Canada, Limited - The In-Between World of Vikram Lall: ISBN 140004216X (1-4000-4216-X)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group
- The In-Between World of Vikram Lall: ISBN 0385659911 (0-385-65991-1)
The Journey Prize Anthologyby M. G. VassanjiISBN 0771044283 (0-7710-4428-3)
Softcover, McClelland & Stewart Ltd
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A Meeting of Streams: South Asian Canadian Literatureby M. G. VassanjiISBN 0920661009 (0-920661-00-9)
Softcover, T S A R Publications
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No New Landby M. G. VassanjiISBN 0771087225 (0-7710-8722-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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Uhuru Street: Short Storiesby M. G. VassanjiISBN 0771087268 (0-7710-8726-8)
Softcover, McClelland & Stewart
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When She Was Queenby M. G. VassanjiISBN 0385661770 (0-385-66177-0)
Softcover, Doubleday Canada, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'When She Was Queen'Book summary:My father lost my mother one evening in a final round of gambling at the poker table, writes the narrator of When She Was Queen, the title story of a new collection by bestselling novelist and two-time winner of the Giller Prize, M.G. Vassanji. That fateful evening in Kenya becomes the obsessive and dark centre of the young mans existence and leads him, years later in Toronto, to unearth an even darker family secret.
In The Girl With The Bicycle, a man witnesses a woman from his hometown of Dar es Salaam spit at a corpse as it lies in state at a Toronto mosque. As he struggles to fathom her strange behaviour, he finds himself prey to memories and images from the pastand to perilous yearnings that could jeopardize his comfortable, middle-aged life.
Still reeling from the impact of his wifes betrayal, a man decides to stop in on an old college friend in Elvis, Raja. But he soon realizes that its not always wise to visit the past as he finds himself trapped in a most curious household, where Elvis Presley has replaced the traditional Hindu gods.
The other stories in the collection also feature exceptional lives transplanted. A young man returns to his roots in India, hoping to find his uncle and, perhaps, a bride. Instead, he becomes a reluctant guru to the residents of his ancestral village. A mukhi must choose between granting the final sacrilegious wish of a dying man and abiding by religious custom in a community that considers him a representative of God. A woman is torn between the voice of her dead husbanda cold and grim-natured atheistand her new, kind and loving husband whose faith nevertheless places constraints on her as a woman. On Halloween night, a scientist lays bare his horrifying plan to seek vengeance on the man who thwarted his career.
Set variously in Kenya, Canada, India, Pakistan, and the American Midwest, these poignant and evocative stories portray migrants negotiating the in-between worlds of east and west, past and present, secular and religious. Richly detailed and full of vivid characters, the stories are worlds unto themselves, just as a dusty African street full of bustling shops is a world, and so is the small matrix of lives enclosed by an intimate Toronto neighbourhood. It is the smells and sentiments and small gestures that constitute life, and of these Vassanji is a master.
Vassanjis seventh book and his second collection of short stories, When She Was Queen was shortlisted for the 2006 Toronto Book Award. The jury said: "Vassanji's Naipaulian language is like a sharp short knife that cuts through the superficial and gets to the heart and soul of the narrative.
From the Hardcover edition. [via] 
World of Wondersby Robertson Davies, M. G. VassanjiISBN 0143051407 (0-14-305140-7)
Softcover, Penguin Group (Canada)
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