Moyez G. Vassanji, CM (born) is a novelist and editor, who writes under the name M. G. Vassanji. A citizen of Canada, Vassanji's identity spans three.
M G Vassanji is the author of seven novels, two 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 also shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the Governor General’s Prize, the Writers Trust Award, and India's Crossword Prize. His work has been translated into 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. (Photo: Mark Reynolds) M G Vassanji was born in Nairobi, Kenya and raised in Tanzania. He received a BS from the Massachussetts Institute of Technology and a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, before going to live in Canada. He is a member of the Order of Canada and has been awarded several honorary doctorates. He lives in Toronto, and visits East Africa and India often. recent appearances "MG Vassanji travels back to Tanzania." Interview, Macleans, October 2014 http://www.macleans.ca/culture/books/m-g-vassanji-travels-back-to-tanzania / “The New (Asian) African: Politics and Creativity in the 1960s.” Lecture (2013-2014) at the University of Indiana, Bloomington; School of Oriental and African Studies (London); Kenyatta University (Nairobi); the University of Nairobi. “Gandhi: A Personal Discovery.” Lecture to Gandhi Society, Calgary, Alberta. October 2014 “Physics, Fiction, and Song: On the Influence of Mystical Folk Songs.” University of Calgary. October 2013 “A Place Called In-between, in the Country of Nowhere.” The 2012 Arthur Ravenscroft Memorial Lecture, Leeds University, England. In conversation with Austin Clarke, Margaret Atwood, and Linden McIntyre (this coversation took place in October 2013, for the 25th anniversary of the Giller Prize.) NEW M G Vassanji: Essays on His Works edited by Asma Sayed Published by Guernica Press, Toronto A collection of interpretive essays on the author, along with an extended interview.
M.G. Vassanji’s magnificent new novel provides further proof of his unique. (Edited by M.G. Vassanji) Toronto: TSAR Publications, 1985.
M G Vassanji weaves haunting tales of lives transplanted, of the traumas small and large of migration, of the bitterness of memory.
M G Vassanji is the author of seven novels, two collections of short stories, a travel memoir about India, a memoir of East Africa, and a biography of Mordecai.
M.G. Vassanji. Moyez J. Vassanji was born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1950 and raised in Tanzania. His parents were a part of a wave of Indians who immigrated to Africa.