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The Book of Secrets

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The Book of Secrets

by VASSANJI M G

McClelland & Stewart | October 30, 2009 | Hardcover

The Book of Secrets is a spellbinding novel of generations and the sweep of history which begins in 1988 in Dar es Salaam when the 1913 diary of a British colonial officer is found in a shopkeeper's back room. The diary enflames the curiosity of a retired schoolteacher, Pius Fernandes, whose obsession with the stories it contains gradually connects the past with the present. Inhabiting the story is a memorable cast of characters, part of an Asian community in East Africa, whose lives and fates we follow over the course of seven decades. Rich in detail and description, M. G. Vassanji's award-winning novel magnificently conjures setting and the realm of eras past as it explores the state of living in exile from one's home and from oneself.


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    Rating: 1/5

    Lonnnnnnnnng! Oh yeah...and boring.

    Charlotte Wiebe

    2 years ago

    This book had too many words explaining a storyline that seemed to be interesting but went absolutely nowhere. I did wonder why certain events were put in the book because I couldn't figure out what they should have related too. Oh, and I never did get my questions answered(which were the main reasons I kept reading the book). I have no idea what others saw in this book except that the book itself looks cool and has a ribbon book mark. Possibly worst book I have ever read. I am so sorry that I had to write this but I couldn't let others waste as much time as I did.

Details

From the Publisher

The Book of Secrets is a spellbinding novel of generations and the sweep of history which begins in 1988 in Dar es Salaam when the 1913 diary of a British colonial officer is found in a shopkeeper's back room. The diary enflames the curiosity of a retired schoolteacher, Pius Fernandes, whose obsession with the stories it contains gradually connects the past with the present. Inhabiting the story is a memorable cast of characters, part of an Asian community in East Africa, whose lives and fates we follow over the course of seven decades. Rich in detail and description, M. G. Vassanji's award-winning novel magnificently conjures setting and the realm of eras past as it explores the state of living in exile from one's home and from oneself.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

About the Author

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 (1991), 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 resume 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. He lives in Toronto with his wife and two sons.

Hardcover

352 Pages, 5.3 x 8.1 x 1.2 in

October 30, 2009

McClelland & Stewart

English


0771087292
9780771087295

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From the Critics

"Part generational history, part detective story, part social chronicle, the novel is a 'living tapestry to join the past to the present.'…"
-Citation from The Giller Prize Jury: Alice Munro, Mordecai Richler, and David Staines

"Vassanji captures a wide and authentic perspective that ranks with V. S. Naipaul and Graham Greene."
-The Times (U.K.)

"A vivid portrait of time and place."
-Montreal Gazette

"A love affair with the past…an exquisite, tender, and possibly great novel."
-New Yorker

"Vassanji is one of the country's finest storytellers."
-Quill & Quire

"Vassanji masterfully weaves an extraordinarily colorful and richly complicated carpet.…A big book in every sense."
-Toronto Star

"A testament to the almost mystical power of written words, Pius Fernandes's search for the truth is also a celebration of storytelling."
-New York Times Book Review

"As I read this book about exiled people squeezed by war and circumstance, I thought of other novels that seem its cousins; Timothy Findley's Famous Last Words, Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter."
-Lawrence Scanlan, Globe and Mail

"A poignant, questioning work that confirms Vassanji as one of our most thoughtful, as well as one of our more able, writers."
-Financial Post

"A work of art.…Highly recommended."
-Library Journal

"A mesmerizing and rewarding literary experience."
-Winnipeg Free Press

"From its opening page it is clear that The Book of Secrets is a story about the importance of language and writing in shaping history.…Vassanji's prose is simple and evocative, with a light touch he recreates places and times, deploying flashes of colour with a careful attention to detail."
-Financial Times (U.K.)

"The book is lush with evocations of East African physical, cultural, and historical landscapes.…"
-Publishers Weekly

"A glorious novel.…"
-Law Times

"Fact and fiction are melded into a compelling narrative which transcends reality and nourishes both mind and spirit.…[Vassanji] captures both the minute ripples of individual human motivations and the broad sweep of that grim machine we call history."
-Ottawa Citizen



From the Trade Paperback edition.

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