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And Home Was Kariakoo

Name: And Home Was Kariakoo
Price: 18.00 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: M.G. Vassanji
ISBN: 9780385671453

Paperback $18.00

Published on Jan 26, 2016 | 400 Pages

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$18.00

Published on Jan 26, 2016 | 400 Pages

Buy from Other Retailers:

From M.G. Vassanji, two-time Scotiabank Giller Prize winner and a Governor General’s Literary Award winner for Non-fiction, comes a poignant love letter to his birthplace and homeland, East Africa—a powerful and surprising portrait that only an insider could write.

Part travelogue, part memoir, and part history-rarely-told, here is a powerful and timely portrait of a constantly evolving land. From a description of Zanzibar and its evolution to a visit to a slave-market town at Lake Tanganyika; from an encounter with a witchdoctor in an old coastal village to memories of his own childhood in the streets of Dar es Salaam and the suburbs of Nairobi, Vassanji combines brilliant prose, thoughtful and candid observation, and a lifetime of revisiting and reassessing the continent that molded him—and, as we discover when we follow the journeys that became this book, shapes him still.

“Vassanji chronicles his travels . . . searching for a sense of home and historical belonging. . . . Fascinating.”
—Winnipeg Free Press

“And Home Was Kariakoo is a memoir in the widest sense. There is no straightforward narrative or awakening; instead, the book is composed of memories—Vassanji’s scattered travels through East Africa—and tied together with sharp historical perspective. How do the different parts of a person coalesce to create an identity? What does ‘home’ mean and what are our responsibilities to it? . . . Throughout And Home Was Kariakoo, Vassanji succeeds in understanding the tension of a bifurcated life and exposing the weight of belonging carried by immigrants like him. After six novels and a long, successful career, Vassanji’s search from how he went to Nairobi to Toronto has come to a meaningful reckoning.”
—The Globe and Mail

“Part memoir, part road trip, part pilgrimage, And Home Was Kariakoo takes the reader on a compelling journey of discovery. Moyez Vassanji is a guide whose sense of belonging animates every paragraph. He’s the ideal companion on interminable bus trips, evoking the tedium and the humour. He shares with us delectable kebabs and chapatis in tiny, hidden shops and revealing conversations over fragrant cups of tea.”
—Zoomer

“Compelling. . . . And Home Was Kariakoo offers an insider’s experience of East Africa, empathetic and informed. . . . Vassanji contemplates in clean, unfussy prose. He probes connections between past and present—and isn’t sentimental about either.”
— Maclean’s

“Weaving together childhood memories, personal experience and little-known history from regions as diverse as Zanzibar to Lake Tanganyika to the suburbs of Nairobi, Vassanji paints a picture of this misunderstood part of the world that’s fresh, vibrant and close to the bone.”
—CBC Books

Author

M.G. Vassanji

M.G. Vassanji is the author of ten novels, three collections of short stories, a travel memoir about India, a memoir of East Africa, and a biography of Mordecai Richler. He is twice winner of the Giller Prize (1994, 2003) for best work of fiction in Canada; the Governor General’s Prize (2009) for best work of nonfiction; the Harbourfront Festival Prize; the Commonwealth First Book Prize (Africa, 1990); and the Bressani Prize. The Assassin’s Song was shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the Governor General’s Prize, the Writers Trust Award, and India’s Crossword Prize. Nostalgia, his dystopian novel, was a finalist for CBC’s Canada Reads. His work has been translated into Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish, and Swahili. Vassanji has given lectures worldwide and written many essays, including introductions to the works of Robertson Davies, Anita Desai, and Mordecai Richler, and the autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi. In June 2015, MG Vassanji was awarded the Canada Council Molson Prize for the Arts.

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And Home Was Kariakoo

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By M.G. Vassanji