November 3, 2009
Media contact: Kim Lawrence
604-864-4611
or 1-888-504-7441, local 4611
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Attn book-lovers: much-lauded author of The Assassin's Song to read at UFV on Nov 20
Like many of us, he just wants to be 'normal'. In M.G. Vassanji's novel The Assassin's Song, young Karsan Dargawalla just wants to go to school, play cricket, talk to girls, and make his own choices. Instead, he must cope with the knowledge that one day he will succeed his father as guardian of the Shrine of the Wanderer: as the highest spiritual authority in their region, he will be God’s representative to the multitudes who come to the shrine for penance and worship. As a young man, Karsan tries to escape his family's religious legacy, travelling from his native India to the United States for college (at Harvard) and eventually settling in British Columbia. He succeeds in attaining 'normalcy' but his heritage haunts him until he is forced to examine it more closely.
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M. G. Vassanji |
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| Award-winning author Vassanji will be visiting the University of the Fraser Valley's Abbotsford campus on the afternoon of November 20 to read from The Assassin's Song, which was published in 2007 and has since been short-listed for the Giller Prize, the Governor General's Award, and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. Book clubs and book-lovers across the valley are encouraged to read the novel now and attend the free event with questions for the author in hand. The reading will take place in F125 (University House) on the Abbotsford campus at 4 pm on Friday, November 20, 2009.
About MG Vassanji
Of South Asian heritage, Vassanji was born in Nairobi, Kenya, and raised in Tanzania. While attending the University of Nairobi, he won a scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study nuclear physics. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1978, he moved to Canada to work at the Chalk River Laboratories, in the theoretical physics branch in Chalk River, Ontario. In 1980, he moved to Toronto to begin his writing career.
Vassanji's work has received considerable critical acclaim. The Gunny Sack won a regional Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1990. In 1994, he won the Harbourfront Festival Prize in recognition of his "achievement in and contribution to the world of letters." That year he was also one of twelve Canadians chosen for Maclean's Magazine's Honour Roll. Vassanji won the inaugural Giller Prize in 1994 for The Book of Secrets. He again won the Giller Prize in 2003 for The In-Between World of Vikram Lall. He was the first writer to win the Giller Prize more than once. In 2006, When She Was Queen was short-listed for the City of Toronto Book Award. In 2005, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada.
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