Nowhere, Exactly by M.G. Vassanji
CBC Books | Posted: March 18, 2024 5:51 PM | Last Updated: March 20
Essays on what it means to be home
M.G. Vassanji has been exploring the immigrant experience for over three decades, drawing deeply on his own transnational upbringing and intimate understanding of the unique challenges and perspectives born from leaving one's home to resettle in a new land. The question of identity, of how to configure and see oneself within this new land, is one such challenge faced. But Vassanji suggests that a more fundamental and slippery endeavour than establishing one's identity is how, if ever, we can establish a sense of belonging. Can we ever truly belong in this new home? Did we ever truly belong in the home we left? Where exactly do we belong? For many, the answer is nowhere exactly.
Combining brilliant prose, thoughtful, candid observation, and a lifetime of exploring how we as individuals are shaped by the places and communities in which we live and the history that haunts them, Nowhere, Exactly examines with exquisite sensitivity the space between identity and belonging, the immigrant experience of both loss and gain, and the weight of memory and nostalgia, guilt and hope felt by so many of those who leave their homes in search of new ones. (From Doubleday Canada)
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M.G. Vassanji is a Toronto-based author of Indian descent born in Kenya and raised in Tanzania. His original works include Everything There Is, A Delhi Obsession and The Book of Secrets. He was the recipient of the 1994 and 2003 Giller Prize for best work of fiction for his books The Books of Secrets and The In-Between World of Vikram Lall.