The Gunny Sack: Africa's Answer to Midnight Children

M.G. Vassanji was born in Kenya, and raised in Tanzania. He took a doctorate in physics at M.I.T. and came to Canada in 1978. While working as a research associate and lecturer at the University of Toronto in the 1980s he began to dedicate himself seriously to a longstanding passion, writing. His first novel, The Gunny Sack , won a regional Commonwealth Writers Prize and he was invited to be writer-in-residence at the University of Iowa. The novel’s success was a spur, Vassanji has commented: “It was translated into several languages. I was confident that this was what I could do, that writing was not just wishful thinking. In 1989 I quit my full-time job and began researching The Book of Secrets .” That celebrated, bestselling novel won the inaugural Giller prize, in 1994. Vassanji’s other books include the acclaimed novels No New Land (1991) and Amriika (1999), and Uhuru Street , a collection of stories. His unique place in Canadian literature comes from his elegant, classical style, his narrative reach, and his interest in characters trying to reconcile different worlds within themselves. The subtle relations of the past and present are also constants in his writing: “When someone asks you where you are from or who you are, there is a whole résumé of who you are. I know very few people who do not have a past to explain. That awareness is part of my work.” M.G. Vassanji was awarded the Harbourfront Festival Prize in 1994 in recognition of his achievement in and contribution to the world of letters, and was in the same year chosen as one of twelve Canadians on Maclean’s Honour Roll. In 2003 he became the first writer to win the Giller Prize twice, when his bestselling novel The In-Between World of Vikram Lall gained the award. M.G. Vassanji lives in Toronto with his wife and two sons.

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