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What you are : stories / by Vassanji, M. G.,author.;
"From M.G. Vassanji, two-time Giller Prize winner and winner of the Governor General's Literary Award, comes a finely crafted collection of short fiction that explores the tensions between remembering past homes and belonging in new ones. Weaving between wistful memories of youthful ambition and the compromises and comforts of age, travelling between the streets of Dar es Salaam and Toronto, the characters in these stories must negotiate distance--between here and there; between lives imagined and lives lived; between expectation and disappointment; between inclusion and exclusion. Throughout, Vassanji engages passionately with the intellectual and political questions that inspire him as a writer and a citizen, while always matching the energy of his ideas with the empathy and emotional depth he invests in his characters. As with all Vassanji's finest work, What You Are stands as a model of artistic integrity and clarity of vision."--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Short stories.; Identity (Philosophical concept);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Nowhere, exactly : on identity and belonging / by Vassanji, M. G.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references.From one of Canada's most celebrated writers, two-time Giller Prize winner M.G. Vassanji, comes a thoughtful meditation on what it means to belong in the world. Home is never a single place, entirely and unequivocally. It is contingent. The abstract "nowhere," then, is the true home. M.G. Vassanji has been exploring the immigrant experience for over three decades, drawing deeply on his own transnational upbringing and intimate understanding of the unique challenges and perspectives born from leaving one's home to resettle in a new land. The question of identity, of how to configure and see oneself within this new land, is one such challenge faced. But Vassanji suggests that a more fundamental and slippery endeavour than establishing one's identity is how, if ever, we can establish a sense of belonging. Can we ever truly belong in this new home? Did we ever truly belong in the home we left? Where exactly do we belong? For many, the answer is nowhere exactly. Combining brilliant prose, thoughtful, candid observation, and a lifetime of exploring how we as individuals are shaped by the places and communities in which we live and the history that haunts them, 'Nowhere, Exactly' examines with exquisite sensitivity the space between identity and belonging, the immigrant experience of both loss and gain, and the weight of memory and nostalgia, guilt and hope felt by so many of those who leave their homes in search of new ones.
Subjects: Belonging (Social psychology); Emigration and immigration; Identity (Psychology); Immigrants;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

A Delhi obsession / by Vassanji, M. G.,author.;
"Two-time Giller Prize winner M.G. Vassanji returns with a powerful new novel about grief and second chances, tradition and rebellion, set in vibrant present-day Delhi. Munir Khan, a recent widower from Toronto, on a whim decides to visit Delhi, his ancestral city. Born in Kenya, he has lost all family connections, and has never visited India before. While he's sitting in the bar of the club where he is staying, an attractive woman takes a chair at his table to await her husband. A sparring match ensues. The two are from different worlds: Munir is a westernized agnostic of Muslim origin, ignorant about India; Mohini, a modern Hindu woman and daughter of "Partition" refugees, whose family bears resentment towards Muslims. She's religiously traditional, but also a liberal and provocative newspaper columnist--and utterly witty and charming. Against her better judgement, Mohini agrees to show Munir around Delhi. As they explore the thriving markets and historical buildings of Delhi, an inexplicable attraction begins. What follows is a passionate love affair--uncontrollable yet impossible. This is a period of rising Hindu nationalism in modern India that at times manifests itself in vigilante violence. Constantly lurking at Munir's club is the menacing presence of a group of arch conservatives, self-styled protectors of Hindu women and cows. To them Munir Khan is simply a Muslim "love-jihadi" who has led the pride of Hindu womanhood, Mohini Singh, astray. Munir and Mohini must contend with the cost of their passion."--
Subjects: Widowers; Man-woman relationships; Hindu women; Muslim men; Hindutva;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
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Everything there is : a novel / by Vassanji, M. G.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."From two-time Giller Prize winner M.G. Vassanji, one of Canada's finest and most celebrated writers, comes a brilliant new novel that vividly examines the seemingly incongruous worlds of science, religion and desire. Nurul Islam is a world-renowned physicist, professor at Imperial College, London, and one half of the Islam-Rosenfeld theory, the first step in a grand unification of forces and a Theory of Everything. A sensitive character, from a small town in undivided India, a family man profoundly influenced by his pious father, Nurul is happily married to Sakina Begum by an arranged marriage. They have three children. But when Nurul travels to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to give a public lecture at Harvard, he falls in love with a graduate student, Hilary Chase. At the same time Nurul Islam's outspoken, philosophical views about the nature of physics and God have earned him the ire of fundamentalist preachers in Pakistan. When approached to contribute to Pakistan's nuclear weapons project, he declines, recalling the catastrophe of India's Partition, thus making enemies of the political and military establishments. Meanwhile, a contingent of physicists begins a smear campaign, claiming that Nurul Islams's contribution to the unification theory was plagiarized from Rosenfeld. All these events link together and converge upon Sakina Begum who, smarting from her husband's betrayal, unwittingly commits a betrayal of her own. Everything that had worked together as though preordained since his childhood to take him to the pinnacle of scientific achievement suddenly falls apart. An intimate and intelligent account of love, honour, guilt and genius, Everything There Is gives us an engaging portrait of a traditional, spiritual man facing the onslaught of inescapable forces."--
Subjects: Psychological fiction.; Novels.; Betrayal; College teachers; Man-woman relationships; Married people; Physicists; Revenge;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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And home was Kariakoo : a memoir of East Africa / by Vassanji, M. G,author.;
Includes bibliographical references.
Subjects: Vassanji, M. G.; Vassanji, M. G.; Authors, Canadian (English);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Mordecai Richler / by Vassanji, M. G..;
Includes bibliographical references.
Subjects: Richler, Mordecai 1931-2001.; Novelists, Canadian (English); Authors, Canadian (English); Jewish authors;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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