This is a free public lecture and everyone is welcome to attend. Please register your attendance via this link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/8052630635
To attend the conference, please register via “Programme” page on this site.
Public Lecture by M. G. Vassanji, Friday, November 8, 2013 6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. at Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS
The lecture will be followed by a reception and book signing; all are welcome to attend this FREE event.
Title: Assimilation – The Dream and Reality: The Case of the Asian African
Speaker Bio:
M G Vassanji was born in Nairobi, Kenya and raised in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He did his undergraduate studies at MIT and his graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania, where he specialized in theoretical nuclear physics. He came to Canada in 1976 as a postdoctoral fellow and was a research associate at the University of Toronto. During this period, while researching his roots, he developed a keen interest in medieval Indian (bhakti) 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 stories and a novel. In 1989, with the publication of his first novel, The Gunny Sack, he was invited to spend a season at the International Writing Program of the University of Iowa. That year ended his active career in nuclear physics.
M.G. Vassanji is the author of seven acclaimed novels: The Gunny Sack, which won the regional Commonwealth Prize; No New Land; The Book of Secrets, which won the very first Giller Prize; Amriika; The In-Between World of Vikram Lall, which also won the Giller Prize; The Assassin’s Song, which was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Award for Fiction; and The Magic of Saida. He is also the author of two collections of short fiction, Uhuru Street and When She Was Queen, and a work of non-fiction, A Place Within: Rediscovering India. He wrote biography of Mordecai Richler in 2009. Furthermore, he is the author of numerous articles discussing a variety of subjects from politics in Africa to the state of Canadian literature.
“Vassanji’s Africa is a nuanced terrain. . . . His keen grasp of the colonial warfare offers an instructive guide to our troubled time.” – The Nation
“Gorgeous and heartrending. . . . Vassanji explores love and loss with all the tact of a true literary power/” – Chicago Tribune
“Belonging in a category with Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Vassanji’s saga [The In-Between World of Vikram Lall] is sweeping in scope. . . . It wrestles passionately and intelligently with big intractable questions. . . . Revelatroy and unforgettable.” – The Globe and Mail
“[A] resplendent novel.” – The New Yorker on The Assassin’s Song
“Vassanji is one of the country’s finest storytellers.” – Quill and Quire
