M.G. Vassanji

Photo from CBC

M.G. Vassanji was born in Kenya, raised in Tanzania and educated at MIT and The University of Pennsylvania. He came to Canada in 1978 as a postdoctoral fellow at the Atomic Energy Commission, then moved to the University of Toronto, where he worked as a research associate.

In Toronto he developed a strong interest in literature and co-founded a literary magazine known as The Toronto Review of Contemporary Writing Abroad.

He published his first novel, The Gunny Sack, in 1989, and won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. He then went on to produce five more novels as well as two collections of short stories and a biography of Mordecai Richler.

Mr. Vassanji is a two-time winner of the Giller. In 1994, he was awarded the first Giller to be given out for The Book of Secrets, and then won the prize again in 2003 for The In-Between World of Vikram Lall. In 2007, his novel The Assassin's Song (2007) was nominated for the Giller prize once again.

Winner of the Harbourfront Prize and the shortlisted for the Crossword Book Prize in India, Vassanji has been widely translated, as well as being awarded a number of honorary doctorates. He was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 2005.