Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

Fiction Literary

The Book of Secrets

A Novel

by (author) M.G. Vassanji

Publisher
Picador
Initial publish date
Dec 1996
Category
Literary, Historical

  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780312150686
    Publish Date
    Dec 1996
    List Price
    $24.99

Add it to your shelf

Where to buy it

Description

In 1988, a retired schoolteacher named Pius Fernandes receives an old diary found in the back room of an East African shop. Written in 1913 by a British colonial administrator, the diary captivates Fernandes, who begins to research the coded history he encounters in its terse, laconic entries. What he uncovers is a story of forbidden liaisons and simmering vengeances, family secrets and cultural exiles--a story that leads him on an investigative journey through his own past and Africa's.

About the author

M.G. Vassanji was born in Kenya and raised in Tanzania. He attended university in the United States, where he trained as a nuclear physicist, before coming to Canada in 1978. Vassanji is the author of six novels and two collections of short stories. His work has appeared in various countries and several languages, and he has twice won the Giller Prize. His most recent novel, The Assassin’s Song, was shortlisted for both the Giller Prize and the Governor-General’s Award. He is a member of the Order of Canada and lives in Toronto.

M.G. Vassanji's profile page

Awards

  • Winner, Giller Prize - Winner

Editorial Reviews

“Rich . . . wonderful . . . entertaining . . . a celebration of storytelling.” —David Willis McCullough, The New York Times Book Review
“A love affair with the past . . . [an] exquisite, tender, and possibly great novel.” —The New Yorker
“Well-written, mulit-layered, and teasingly inconclusive . . . Offers a view of an area seldom treated in fiction.” —The Atlantic Monthly

Other titles by

Nowhere, Exactly

On Identity and Belonging

by (author) M.G. Vassanji

Everything There Is

by (author) M.G. Vassanji

What You Are

Short Stories

by (author) M.G. Vassanji

A Delhi Obsession

A Novel

by (author) M.G. Vassanji

A Delhi Obsession

A Novel

by (author) M.G. Vassanji

Luminous Ink

Writers on Writing in Canada

edited by Tessa McWatt, Rabindranath Maharaj & Dionne Brand
contributions by Margaret Atwood, Madeleine Thien, M.G. Vassanji, Lawrence Hill, Pascale Quiviger, Nino Ricci, Sheila Fischman, Heather O'Neill, Camilla Gibb, Eden Robinson, Lee Maracle, Rawi Hage, Michael Helm, Lisa Moore, Rita Wong, Hiromi Goto, George Elliott Clarke, Nicole Brossard, Judith Thompson, David Chariandy, Richard Van Camp, Marie-Hélène Poitras, Stephen Henighan, Greg Hollingshead, Michael Ondaatje & Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

Nostalgia

by (author) M.G. Vassanji

And Home Was Kariakoo

A Memoir of East Africa

by (author) M.G. Vassanji

The Magic of Saida

by (author) M.G. Vassanji

Extraordinary Canadians: Mordecai Richler

A Penguin Lives Biography

by (author) M.G. Vassanji