The Book of Secrets: A Novel - Couverture rigide

Vassanji, M. G.

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0312140835 ISBN 13 : 9780312140830

Editeur : Picador USA, 1996

Synopsis

Book by Vassanji M G

A propos du livre

Revue de presse :

“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.

Biographie de l'auteur :

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.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Picador USA
• Date d'édition: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0312140835
• ISBN 13: 9780312140830
• Reliure: Relié