A novel about Indian migration is strengthened by the spiritual questing at its heart, says Sameer Rahim
M G Vassanji has spent his career in fiction writing about characters caught between worlds. Born in 1950 in Kenya to Indian parents, he grew up in Tanzania and later moved to Canada, where he worked as a theoretical physicist.
His first novel, The Gunny Sack (1989), explored the history of an East African Asian family; his later work follows the lives of similar families who have migrated on to North America.
The Assassin’s Song deals with related themes in a different way. It is set mainly in India, from where the narrator, Karsan Dargawalla, moves to North America.
Here I was on a beach in Jamaica, home of the world’s fastest human being, Usain Bolt(100meters in 9.69sec), fully intending to survey all the beauty a beach has to offer; instead I ended up rivetted by Vassanji’s book and once I started reading it, could not put it down:
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Cannot agree more. It’s a real page-turner. I totally enjoyed the whole time I spent on this book.
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