Biography of mg vassanji loreslinger

Canadian author (born )

Moyez G. VassanjiCM (born 30 May in Kenya) is a Canadian novelist and editor, who writes under the name M. G. Vassanji.^[1][2] Vassanji's work has been translated into several languages. As of , he has published nine novels, as well as two short-fiction collections and two nonfiction books. Vassanji's writings often focus on issues of colonial history, migration, diaspora, citizenship, gender and ethnicity.^[3][4]

Early life and education

M. G. Vassanji was born in Kenya to Indian immigrants and raised in Tanganyika (now Tanzania).^[5] He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania, where he specialised in nuclear physics, before moving to Canada as a postdoctoral fellow in ^{[citation needed]}

Career

From to Vassanji was a research associate at the University of Toronto. During this period he developed an interest in medieval Indian literature and history, co-founded and edited a literary magazine (The Toronto South Asian Review, later renamed The Toronto Review of Contemporary Writing Abroad), and began writing fiction. Between and , Vassanji published six novels, two collections of short stories, a memoir of his travels in India, and a biography of Mordecai Richler.^{[citation needed]}

In , after the publication of his first novel, The Gunny Sack,^[6][7] Vassanji was invited to spend a season at the International Writing Program of the University of Iowa. The Gunny Sack won a regional Commonwealth Writers Prize in He won the inaugural Giller Prize in for The Book of Secrets. That year, he also won the Harbourfront Festival Prize in recognition of his "achievement in and contribution to the world of letters," and was one of twelve Canadians chosen for Maclean's Magazine's Honour Roll. In he was a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study in Shimla, India. ^{[citation needed]}

He again won the Giller Prize in for The In-Between World of Vikram Lall, the first writer to win this prize twice.^[8] In , When She Was Queen was shortlisted for the City of Toronto Book Award. The Assassin's Song, released in , was short-listed for the Giller Prize, the Rogers Prize, and the Governor General's Prize in Canada, as well as the Crossword Prize in India. In his travel memoir, A Place Within: Rediscovering India, won the Governor-General's Prize for nonfiction. He has also been awarded the Commonwealth Regional Prize (Africa).^{[citation needed]}

His novel The Magic of Saida, set in Tanzania, was published in Canada in , and in he published his memoirs, Home Was Kariakoo, based on his childhood and recent travels in East Africa.^[8] and in he published another novel, Nostalgia.^[9] In , his ninth novel A Delhi Obsession was published.^{[citation needed]}

He is a member of the Order of Canada. In , he received the Canada Council Molson Prize for his career achievement.^{[citation needed]}

Themes

Vassanji's works have been reviewed by literary critics, such as in works edited by Nobel prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah.^[3] Several themes emerge.^[10][11][12] Mainly, his characters are the Asians of East Africa (Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania), whose historical record, as of that region as a whole, is sparse. In telling the story of his subjects, in his earlier novels he has used memory, written record, and folklore, in an intersection of oral and written histories. Thus in The Gunny Sack, his first novel, he starts with many memories, but his narrator has to delve into written history, primarily through colonial journals and travelogues, to complete and give shape to his created history. His third novel, The Book of Secrets starts with the journal of a colonial administrator at the border between German and British East Africa and brings to his creation memories and archival material. In The In-between World of Vikram Lall, he looks at the condition and involvement of the Asians of Kenya during the Mau Mau War of the s. The past and unresolved issues cast strong shadows in his works. In his other works, for example No New Land, his characters have undergone a second migration, starting in the s, to Europe, Canada, or the United States. Vassanji then examines how the lives of these characters are affected by their migrations.^[13][14][15] Though few of his African Asian characters ever return to India, the country's presence looms throughout his work. His novel The Assassins Song, inspired by the devotional, mystical songs of his Khoja Ismaili community, which deeply influenced him in childhood, is set almost entirely in India, where it was received as an Indian novel and short-listed for the Crossword Prize. His second novel, No New Land, describes the travails of Asian immigrants arrived in Canada from Tanzania; as the title implies, there is no new land, the characters continue in their minds to lead the same lives. In the dystopic novel Nostalgia Vassanji tackles the topic of assimilation, in which characters can have their memories erased and replaced by new ones in order to be better integrated. But, the novel asks, is the process of erasure perfect? ^{[citation needed]}

Vassanji writes about the effects of history and the interaction between personal and public histories, including folk and colonial history.^[16] Vassanji's narratives follow the personal histories of his main characters; the historical perspective provided often leaves mysteries unsolved. The colonial history of Kenya and Tanzania serves as the backdrop for much of his work;^[17] in the Assassin's Song, however, he tackles Indian folk culture and myths.^{[citation needed]}

Bibliography

Novels

Short story collections

• Uhuru Street () inspired by Naipaul's Miguel Street.
• When She Was Queen ()
• What You Are ()

Non-fiction collections

• A Place Within ()
• Extraordinary Canadians: Mordecai Richler ()
• And Home Was Kariakoo: A Memoir of East Africa ()

References

External links

• Official website
• M. G. Vassanji's entry at The Canadian Encyclopedia
• M.G. Vassanji, Emory University, Department of English
• Interview and excerpt from The Assassin's Song, online from CBC Words at Large
• Audio interview regarding The Assassin's Song, , 26 September
• The autor's item at Athabasca University, English-Canadian Writers, by Lee Skallerup
• Interview on A Delhi Obsession, The Open Magazine
• Interview with Financial Express on A Delhi Obsession, The Financial Express