Anita Rau Badami (born 24 September 1961) is a writer of South Asian Diaspora living in

Canada with a strong voice of the modern Indian Diaspora. Born in Rourkela, Odisha, India. She
emigrated to Canada in 1991, and earned an M.A. at the University of Calgary. Her first
novel, Tamarind Mem(1997), grew out of her university thesis.
Her novels deal with the complexities of Indian family life and with the cultural gap that emerges
when Indians move to the west.
Badami's third novel, Can You Hear the Nightbird Call explores the Golden Temple
Massacre and the Air India Bombing.
Bibliography

The Hero's Walk - 2001 ISBN 0-676-97225-X

Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? - 2006 ISBN 978-0676976052
Tell it to the Trees- 2011 ISBN 978-0676978940

Shauna Singh Baldwin (born 1962 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian-American novelist

of Indian descent. Her 2000 novel What the Body Remembers won the Commonwealth Writers'
Prize (Canadian/Caribbean Region), and her 2004 novel The Tiger Claw was nominated for
the Giller Prize. She currently lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her second short-story
collection, We Are Not in Pakistan, was released in Canada in 2007.
Baldwin and her husband own the Safe House,[1] an espionage themed restaurant in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin.

Books[edit]

A Foreign Visitor's Survival Guide to America (1992, coauthored)

English Lessons and Other Stories (1996, short stories)
What the Body Remembers: a novel (2000)
The Tiger Claw: a novel (2004)
We Are Not in Pakistan: stories (2007)
The Selector of Souls: a novel (Sept 2012)

Plays[edit]

We Are So Different Now (2009)

Neil Bissoondath
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Neil Devindra Bissoondath (born April 19, 1955 in Arima, Trinidad and Tobago) is a Canadian
author who lives in Ste-Foy, Quebec. He is a noted writer of fiction, and also an outspoken critic
of Canada's system of multiculturalism. He is the nephew of authors V.S. Naipaul and Shiva
Naipaul.
Biography[edit]
Bissoondath attended St. Mary's College in Trinidad and Tobago. Although he was from a Hindu
tradition, he was able to adapt to a Catholic high school. Bissoondath describes himself as not
very religious and distrustful of dogma. In the early Seventies, political upheaval and economic
collapse had created a climate of chaos and violence in the island nation. In 1973, at the age of
eighteen, Bissoondath left Trinidad and settled in Ontario, where he studied at York University,
receiving a Bachelor of Arts in French in 1977. He then taught English and French at
the Inlingua School of Languages and the Toronto Language Workshop. He won the McClelland
and Stewart award and the National Magazine award, both in 1986, for the short story
"Dancing".
Awards[edit]
Bissoondath has received honorary doctorates from York University[1] and lUniversit de
Moncton.[2] In 2010 he was made a Chevalier of the Ordre national du Qubec.[3] In 2012 he was
awarded the NALIS (National Library of Trinidad and Tobago) Lifetime Literary Achievement
Award.[4]
Bibliography[edit]
Novels[edit]

A Casual Brutality (ISBN 9781896951409) 1989

The Innocence of Age 1993

The Worlds Within Her (ISBN 9781896951874) 1999 (Nominated for a Governor
General's Award)

Doing the Heart Good (ISBN 9781896951645) 2002

The Unyielding Clamour of the Night (ISBN 9781896951874) 2005

The Soul of All Great Designs (ISBN 9781897151327) 2008

Novella[edit]

Postcards from Hell 2009

Short story collections[edit]

Digging Up Mountains 1987

On the Eve of Uncertain Tomorrows 1991

Anosh Irani
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its
sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article
by introducing more precise citations. (November 2013)

MENU
0:00

Anosh Irani on Bookbits radio talks about Dahanu Roat.

Anosh Irani (born 1974) is an Indian-Canadian novelist and playwright. An Irani (like Parsi, but
of more recent Iranian extraction), he was born and raised in Mumbai, although he has indicated
that he personally prefers the city's traditional English name, Bombay. After working in
advertising in India, he moved to Vancouver in 1998 to study and pursue writing.
His first full-length play, The Matka King, premiered in October 2003 at the Arts Club Theatre
Company in Vancouver. His play, Bombay Black, won four Dora Awards, including Outstanding
New Play. Irani was also featured in Quill & Quire as one of a handful of young Canadian
writers to watch.
He published his debut novel, The Cripple and His Talismans, in 2004. This dark fable won
critical acclaim for its magic realist depiction of the seedy beggars' underworld of India.
Irani's second novel, The Song of Kahunsha, was chosen as a CBC Book Club One pick, and was
selected for the 2007 edition of Canada Reads, where it was championed by Donna Morrissey.
Kahunsha is a story about the abandoned children of Bombay, struggling for survival and to hold
onto hope amidst the violence of the 1993 racial riots.
His third novel, Dahanu Road (novel), was published in 2010.

His latest play, My Granny the Goldfish, premiered at the Arts Club Theatre Company's new
venue, The Revue Stage, in Vancouver on April 16, 2010.
Education[edit]
From 1998 Irani attended the University of British Columbia. He received his Bachelors degree
in Creative Writing in 2002.
In September 2012, Irani taught a Creative Writing course at Simon Fraser University.
Starting in September 2013, Irani will be teaching a Creative Writing course on Playwriting at
McGill University.
Works[edit]

The Matka King (2003, play)

The Cripple and His Talismans (2004, novel) ISBN 978-1-55192-803-6, Raincoast Books
The Song of Kahunsha (2006, novel) ISBN 978-0-385-66229-1, Anchor Canada
Bombay Black (2006, play)
Dahanu Road (2010, novel) ISBN 978-0-385-66699-2, Doubleday Canada
My Granny the Goldfish (2010, play)

Nancy Lee (writer)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nancy Lee
Born

1970
Cardiff, Wales

Occupation

short story writer, novelist

Nationality

Canadian

Period

2003 - present

Genres

fiction

Notable work(s)

Dead Girls

Nancy Lee is a British-born Canadian short story writer and novelist.

Born in Cardiff, Wales to parents of Chinese and Indian descent, she moved with her family
to Vancouver, British Columbia in childhood.[1]
She published her first book of short stories, Dead Girls, in 2003. That book was named book of
the year by NOW, and was a finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Danuta Gleed
Literary Award.
She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia, currently teaches
in the writing and publishing program at Simon Fraser University and in the creative writing
department at University of British Columbia, and has held a visiting professorship at
the University of East Anglia. She was a panelist in the 2003 edition of Canada Reads,
defending Yann Martel's novel Life of Pi. In the spring of 2010 she was writer-in-residence
at Historic Joy Kogawa House, the writing program that takes place in the childhood home of the
author Joy Kogawa(Obasan).
Her first novel, Born Slippy, is forthcoming from McClelland & Stewart.[2]
Works[edit]

Dead Girls (2003)

Ashok Mathur is a South Asian (Indo-Canadian) cultural organizer, writer and visual artist, and
the Head of Creative Studies and an Associate Professor in the Department of Creative Studies at
the University of British Columbia, Okanagan campus. As a Canada Research Chair in Cultural
and Artistic Inquiry, he also directed the Centre for Innovation in Culture and the Arts in Canada
(CiCAC).[1]
Mathur is the author of a volume of poetry (Loveruage; a dance in three parts, Wolsak and
Wynn, 1994), and three novels:

Once Upon an Elephant (Arsenal Pulp Press, 1998, ISBN 978-1-55152-058-2) recounts
the story of the birth of Ganesh as a Canadian courtroom drama.
The Short, Happy Life of Harry Kumar (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2002, ISBN 978-1-55152113-8) was nominated for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, and blends the Ramayana with
modern Canada.

A Little Distillery in Nowgong (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2009, ISBN 978-1-55152-258-6)

follows three generations of a Parsi family from India to North America. Along with the
novel, Mathur also produced an associated art installation, which was shown in Vancouver,
Ottawa, and Kamloops.[2]

Additionally, Mathur's artwork "one hundred thirty-three thousand five hundred twenty-eight
words and a super-8 grab" was part of a 2009 acquisition by the Canada Council Art Bank.[3]
Mathur was born in Bhopal, India; in 1962, at the age of one, he emigrated with his family to
Canada. He worked as a journalist from 1981 to 1985, and then completed his studies at
theUniversity of Calgary, earning a bachelor's degree, master of arts, and Ph.D.[4] Prior to joining
Thompson Rivers in 2005, he taught at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design.[1]

Maxim Mazumdar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Maxim Mazumdar

Died

28 April 1988 (aged 36)[1]

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Occupation

Actor, Playwright, Director

Alma mater

Loyola College

Maxim Mazumdar (1952 April 28, 1988) was an Indo-Canadian playwright and director. He
is known for his one-man show, Oscar Remembered, which tells the story of

the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde as seen from the perspective of his lover and nemesis, Lord
Alfred Douglas.[citation needed]
Mazumdar is the founder of the Phoenix Theatre in Montreal, Quebec,[2] as well as the Provincial
Drama Academy and the Stephenville Theatre Festival in Stephenville, Newfoundland.[3]
Contents
[hide]

1 Early life
2 Career
3 Death
4 References
Early life[edit]
Maxim Mazumdar was born January 27,1952 to a dentist, Dr. Mark Mazumdar. He grew up in
their family home at Charni Road, Mumbai,India. He attended Campion School in Mumbai.[citation
needed]
During this time, he had roles in several school productions, includingApsalom, Ordeal by
Battle, and Oliver Twist, where he played the role of Fagin. In 1969, upon the death of his father,
Mazumdar immigrated to Canada, along with his mother and brother, Mark.[citation needed]
Mazumdar enrolled in Loyola College (now part of Concordia University) in Montreal and
graduated in 1972, with a degree in Communication Studies.[4]
Career[edit]
After graduating from Loyola College, Mazumdar co-founded the now-defunct, Phoenix Theatre
in Montreal. The theatre was intended for English productions. While at Phoenix, he directed and
acted in his own works, as well as works by Nol Coward.[5]
It was while at Phoenix, that he wrote Oscar Remembered, a two-act play that examined the
friendship between Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas. He performed his monologue across
the US and Canada, including at the Stratford Festival.[5][6]
After leaving the Phoenix Theatre, he continued to write and direct his own plays,
including Rimbaud and Dance for Gods. His works explored various aspects of gay history.[citation
needed]

In 1979, while adjudicating at the Newfoundland and Labrador Drama Festival, Mazumdar was
impressed with the quality of the local productions and decided to establish the Provincial Drama

Academy in Stephenville, Newfoundland, offering theatre training to local youth. That same
year, he established the Stephenville Theatre Festival with the aim of bringing a professional
theatre experience to the people in western Newfoundland. The Stephenville Theatre Festival
was the first professional theatre festival in Newfoundland and Labrador.[7]
Over the next nine years, Mazumdar served as Artistic Director to the festival. During this time,
he led the production of several performances in collaboration with director Edmund MacLean
and executive producer Cheryl Stagg. Notable productions included Macbeth, Jesus Christ
Superstar, The Man Who Came To Dinner, and Cyrano de Bergerac.[8]
Death[edit]
Mazumdar died of AIDS in Halifax, Nova Scotia on April 28, 1988.[1] Following his death, his
play, Oscar Remembered, was revived at Stratford in 2000.[5]
In Mazumdar's honour, the Alleyway Theatre in Buffalo, New York grants the annual Maxim
Mazumdar New Play Competition Award, in remembrance of his contributions to the early
growth of Alleyway.[9]

Shaun Mehta
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shaun Mehta is a Canadian writer. He has published one novel and one short story collection to
date, and also collaborated with his brother, film director Richie Mehta, on the screenplay for
Richie's debut film Amal, which was based on one of Shaun's short stories.[1]Amal has won over
30 international awards.
Shaun and Richie Mehta were nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 29th Genie Awards.
Contents
[hide]

o
o
o

1 Works
1.1 Novels
1.2 Short stories
1.3 Screenplays
2 References
3 External links

Works[edit]
Novels[edit]

Divya's Dharma (2004)

Unbroken (publication date TBA)

The Seven Vows (publication date TBA)

Short stories[edit]

A Slice of Life (2005)

Rohinton Mistry
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by
adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced
or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if
potentially libelous or harmful.(March 2008)
Rohinton Mistry
Born

Rohinton Mistry
3 July 1952
Mumbai, India

Occupation

Novelist

Nationality

Canadian

Alma mater

University of Mumbai; University of

Toronto

Genres

Historical fiction, Postcolonial

Literature, Realism, Parsi
Literature Minor Literature

Notable
work(s)

Such a Long Journey; Family

Matters; A Fine Balance

Rohinton Mistry (born 3 July 1952) is an Indian-born Canadian who writes in English. Mistry is
of Indian origin, originally from Mumbai, and currently resides in Brampton, Ontario, Canada.
He practises Zoroastrianism and belongs to the Parsi community. Mistry is a Neustadt
International Prize for Literature laureate (2012).
Contents
[hide]

1 Biography
2 Bibliography
3 Awards and recognition
4 References
5 External links
Biography[edit]
Rohinton Mistry was born in 1952 in Mumbai, India. His brother is the playwright and
author Cyrus Mistry. He earned a BA in Mathematics and Economics from St. Xavier's College,
Mumbai. He emigrated to Canada with his wife in 1975, settling in Toronto where he studied at
the University of Toronto and received a BA in English and Philosophy.[1] He worked in a bank
for a while, before returning to studies, leading up to a degree in English and philosophy. While
attending the University of Toronto he won two Hart House literary prizes (the first to win two),
for stories which were published in the Hart House Review, and Canadian Fiction Magazine's
annual Contributor's Prize for 1985. Two years later, Penguin Books Canada published his
collection of 11short stories, Tales from Firozsha Baag. It was later published in the United
States as Swimming Lessons and Other Stories from Firozsha Baag.[2] The book consists of 11
short stories, all set within one apartment complex in modern-day Mumbai. This volume contains
the oft-anthologized story, "Swimming Lessons."
When his second book, the novel Such a Long Journey, was published in 1991, it won
the Governor General's Award, the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book, and the W.H.
Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award.[2] It was shortlisted for the prestigious Booker
Prize and for the Trillium Award. It has been translated
into German, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish andJapanese, and has been made into the 1998
film Such a Long Journey.
His third book, and second novel, A Fine Balance (1995), won the second annual Giller Prize in
1995, and in 1996, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction. It was selected for Oprah's
Book Club[3] in November 2001 and sold hundreds of thousands of additional copies throughout
North America as a result. It won the 1996 Commonwealth Writers Prize and was shortlisted for
the 1996 Booker prize.[4]

In 2002, Mistry cancelled his United States book tour for his novel Family Matters (2002)
because he and his wife were targeted by security agents at every airport he visited, apparently
because Mistry appeared to be Muslim. Mistry reported that on his first flight of the tour, "we
were greeted by a ticket agent who cheerfully told us we had been selected randomly for a
special security check. Then it began to happen at every single stop, at every single airport. The
random process took on a 100 percent certitude."[5] His publisher issued a statement that said,
"As aperson of colour [Mistry] was stopped repeatedly and rudely at each airport along the way
to the point where the humiliation ... had become unbearable."[6]
Family Matters is a consideration of the difficulties that come with aging, which Mistry returned
to in 2008 with the short fiction The Scream (published as a separate volume, in support of World
Literacy of Canada, with illustrations by Tony Urquhart).
His books portray diverse facets of Indian socioeconomic life; as well as Parsi Zoroastrian life,
customs, and religion. Many of his writings are markedly "Indo-nostalgic".
His literary papers are housed at the Clara Thomas Archives at York University.
Bibliography[edit]
Novels

Such a Long Journey (1991)

A Fine Balance (1995)
Family Matters (2002)

Short stories and chapbooks

Tales from Firozsha Baag (1987), also published as Swimming Lessons and Other Stories
from Firozsha Baag (1989)
Searching for Stevenson (1994)
The Scream (2006)

Awards and recognition[edit]

1983 Hart House Literary Contest, "One Sunday"

1984 Hart House Literary Contest, "Auspicious Occasion"
1985 Annual Contributors' Prize, Canadian Fiction Magazine
1991 Man Booker Prize, shortlist, Such a Long Journey
1991 Governor General's Award, Such a Long Journey
2012 Neustadt International Prize for Literature[7][8]

Shani Mootoo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shani Mootoo, writer, visual artist and video maker, was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1957 to
Trinidadian parents. She grew up in Trinidad and relocated at age 24 to Vancouver, British
Columbia, Canada. She currently lives in Toronto, Canada.
Contents
[hide]

1 Biography
1.1 Literary career
2 Videos written, directed and filmed by Shani Mootoo
3 Selected visual art exhibitions and video screenings
4 Bibliography
5 References

Biography[edit]
At an early age Mootoo showed a talent for drawing, painting and writing, expressing at age of
10 the goal of becoming an artist. Her early efforts, and what were to prove to be a lifelong
interest in food, cooking, and aesthetics in general, were encouraged by her mother
Indra ne Samaroo, while a sense of social responsibility and political activism, evident in the
themes in her work, and in her work practice itself, can be said to have been inherited from her
father Romesh Mootoo, medical family doctor and Trinidad politician, who held among other
posts the positions of party leader, Mayor of San Fernando and Senator. As a child Mootoo has
said that her short poems would terrify her parents because of the two closing lines that
expressed love between two men, or love between two women. She has also said that her parents
worried for what those themes might mean for her future, which is why she put her words away
and chose to paint instead. She claims that she came back to writing accidentally and expressed a
worry that she was not a writer but a painter first.[1]
Mootoos visual art and video work have been exhibited internationally, and her fiction has been
translated into 9 languages. Her paintings have been displayed at the New York Museum of
Modern Art. On the topic of her visual work, Mootoo has said that as a victim of child abuse she
found it safer to use pictures rather than words.[2][3] She had been sexually abused by her uncle
from the age of 2 to 13 and the theme of incest and sexual abuse is prevalent in her first
novel, Cereus Blooms at Night. Mootoo has spoken out against child abuse and in 1989 she
addressed Sex Offenders at Stave Lake Correctional Centre about being a survival of child abuse

and suffering. Mootoo uses her art as a way to deal with the trauma of her childhood and has
discussed feelings of confusion as to why the universe would let child abuse happen, while also
claiming that as a survivor, she and all those that have suffered at the hands of abusers must
come to terms with the trauma and understand what to do with suffering.[4]
Her novels are found on course lists in the Departments of English, Liberal Arts, Womens
Studies, and Cultural Studies at Universities in the Caribbean, Canada, The USA, England,
Europe, India, and Australia. Her writing and art work have been extensively critically reviewed,
and have been the subject of conferences, articles, journals and books. She has served as Writer
in Residence at the University of Alberta, the University of Guelph and the University of the
West Indies, as a Visiting Scholar at Mills College in California, USA, and is a frequent invitee
on the international reading and speaking scene. In 2008, the University of the West Indies, Cave
Hill, Barbados, hosted a "Symposium on the Fictions of Shani Mootoo in the Context of
Caribbean Womens Writings".
Mootoo earned a Fine Arts BFA Degree at the University of Western Ontario in 1980 and an MA
in English and Theatre from the University of Guelph, 2010. As a multimedia visual artist
inVancouver and New York City, where she lived from 1994 to 1999, she explored in her
paintings, photographs and videos themes of gender, sexuality, and race. The themes of her work
resonated with Mootoo's experiences as an adolescent in Trinidad and as an immigrant adult
in Canada. Her visual art and video work have traveled and been acclaimed internationally. She
is now teaching the Creative Writing Program at the University of Toronto.[5]
Literary career[edit]
Mootoos first literary publication, Out on Main Street, a collection of short stories, was solicited
by the Vancouver-based feminist publishing house Press Gang in 1993 and was the beginning of
her literary career. Her first full-length novel, Cereus Blooms at Night, published by Press Gang
in 1996, was shortlisted for the Scotia Bank Giller Prize in 1997, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize,
and the Chapters Books in Canada First Novel Award, and was long-listed for the Man Booker
Prize. Set on a tropical island, Cereus Blooms and Night is written in a luminous, poetic style
that evokes the duality of the Caribbean landscape, the simultaneously sublime and dangerous
qualities of place. It has been published in 15 countries and has won the New England Book
Sellers Award in 1998.[5] The novel is narrated by a male nurse and caretaker, and explores
trauma, madness and redemption, the legacies of sexual abuse, and the boundaries between
heterosexual and homosexual desire.[6]
In 2002, Mootoo followed up her largely successful first novel with a collection of poetry, The
Predicament of Or.

Mootoo's second full-length novel, He Drown She in the Sea (published in 2005), also earned
acclamation, making the long list for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2007.[7]
Mootoo's most recent novel, Valmiki's Daughter (2009), depicts a father and daughter who
struggle to come to terms with secrets. Mootoo has said that the story is about a father trying to
help his daughter from leading the same kind of closeted life that he has led.[8] Set in San
Fernando, Trinidad, Viveka and her father's lives are each underpinned by the constraints of class
and race, and most importantly by the sexual conventions of their society. Set against a strongly
evoked backdrop of place, Valmiki's Daughter charts Viveka's coming to terms with the hard
understanding that love faces society's obstacles, and her knowledge of her certain
survival. Valmiki's Daughter was long-listed for 2009's Scotiabank Giller Prize.[9] In an interview
Mootoo has explained her realization that she had written about food on almost every page
of Valmiki's Daughter without realizing so. She discusses the importance of food and
entertaining people in Trinidadian Culture, as well as in her life and her other work.[8]
Shani Mootoo's body of work has made a substantial contribution to literature, particularly with
respect to her ability to weave sublimity of prose, and the natural world evoked by this, with
individual trauma. In this way her work speaks to a larger experience, with the specificities of
place, history and sexuality reflects a universal desire for truth, love and beauty. By
foregrounding sexual difference in much of her work, Mootoo creates space for alternative
experiences and in so doing challenges and undoes the dehumanizing conservatism of Caribbean
society and elsewhere. By insisting on the truth of experience, Mootoo creates a world in which a
kind of reconciliation is always possible, even in life's most contentious moments. Mootoo does
not want to be seen as an Indo-Trinidadian-Irish-Canadian-lesbian writer, despite her diverse
background, she appreciates just being known as Canadian writer.[10]
In 2009, she served on the jury for the Dayne Ogilvie Prize, a literary award for emerging LGBT
writers in Canada, selecting Debra Anderson as that year's prize winner.[11]
Videos written, directed and filmed by Shani Mootoo[edit]

And the Rest is Drag, 32 mins, 2010 with Melisa Brittain and Danielle Peers (KingCrip
Productions)
View, 8 mins, 2000
Guerita and Prietita, 23 mins, 1999 with Kath High
Her Sweetness Lingers, 18 mins,1998
The Wild Woman in the Woods, 12 mins, 1992
A Paddle and a Compass, 8 mins, 1992 with Wendy Oberlander
English Lesson, 5 mins, 1990
Lest I Burn, 8 mins, 1989

Selected visual art exhibitions and video screenings[edit]

Topographies, The Vancouver Art Gallery, 1997

Transculture, The Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, 1995
The Museum of Modern Art, New York City, New York, USA, 1994, 1995
Queens Museum, New York, USA, 1995
Solo Exhibition, The National Gallery, Port of Spain, Trinidad, 1980

Bibliography[edit]

Out on Main Street (1993)

Cereus Blooms at Night (1996)
The Predicament of or (2001)
He Drown She in the Sea (2005)
Valmiki's Daughter (2009)
Moving Forward Sideways like a Crab (2014)

Ajmer Rode
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ajmer Rode is a Canadian author writing in Punjabi as well as in English. His first work was
non-fiction Vishva Di Nuhar on Einstein's Relativity in dialogue form inspired by
Plato's Republic. Published by the Punjabi University in 1966, the book initiated a series of
university publications on popular science and sociology. Rode's first poetry
book Surti influenced by science and philosophical explorations was experimental and in words
of critic Dr. Attar Singh 'has extended the scope of Punjabi language and given a new turn to
Punjabi poetry'. His most recent poetry book Leela,[1] more than 1000 pages long and coauthored with Navtej Bharati, is counted among the outstanding Punjabi literary works of the
twentieth century.
Rode is regarded the founder of Punjabi theater in Canada. He wrote and directed the first
Punjabi play Dooja Passa dealing with racism faced by minorities. This was followed by his full
length play Komagata Maru based on a significant racial incident in British Columbia's history.
Though it lacked professional direction the play generated considerable publicity inspiring
theatrical interests in the Indian-Canadian community. His most recent English play Rebirth of
Gandhi was produced at Surrey Arts Center Canada) in 2004 to a full house.
Among Rode's significant translation is The Last Flicker an English rendering of a modern
Punjabi classic novel Marhi Da Diva by Gurdial Singh who recently won the Gyan Peeth, India's
highest literary award. The translation was published by the Indian Academy of Letters in 1993.

Currently Rode is member of an international team of translators rendering Sufi songs from
Urdu, Punjabi and Hindi into English; the project based in Los Angeles aims to produce a large
multilingual book of original and translated songs sung by late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the
legendary Sufi singer of the twentieth century.
An active member of the Writers' Union of Canada, Ajmer Rode was on its national council in
1994 and later chaired its Racial Minority Writers Committee; Currently he is co-ordinator
ofVancouver's Punjabi Writers Forum, the oldest and influential Punjabi writers association in
Canada. He has been founding member of several other Indian-Canadian literary and performing
arts associations including Watno Dur Art Foundation, and India Music Society founded to
promote classical Indian music in North America. He was the first secretary of Samaanta, an
organization to oppose violence against women and is now on the advisory board of Chetna, a
Vancouver based organization promoting minority rights and opposing Casteism. He has served
on Canada Council and British Columbia Arts Council juries to award literary grants.
Rode was given the Best Overseas Punjabi Author award by the Punjab Languages
Dept, India in 1994. Guru Nanak Dev University honored him with the "Prominent Citizen
(literature)" award and the G.N. Engg. College with the "Poet of Life" award the same year. In
Canada he has been honored with awards for Punjabi theater and translation.
Contents
[hide]

1 Original works
2 Drama
2.1 Plays written and directed
3 Translations
4 Editing
5 References
6 External links

Original works[edit]

Vishava Di Nuhar, prose, 1966

Dooja Passa, one act plays, 1981
Komagata Maru, full length play, 1984
Blue Meditations, poetry, 1985
Poems at My Doorstep, poetry, 1990
Surti, poetry, 1989, 1979
Shubhchintan, poetry, 1993
Leela, poetry, 1999 ISBN 0-9690504-9-6

Drama[edit]
Plays written and directed[edit]

Dooja Passa, One Girl One Dream, Visa, Komagata Maru,

Nirlajj, Chetna (co-author), Third Eye, Rebirth of Gandhi,

Turi Wala Kotha (direction), Stair to Nowhere (reading),

The Fragrant Grass (reading)

Translations[edit]

The Last Flicker, Novel, 1993

Desire, poems, 1999
One Hundred One Surrealist Poems, 1996
Bird Talk, children's story 2001
Calendar Poems, poems, 2003
Dukh Sukh, poems, 2005

Editing[edit]

Punjabi Poetry of Canada, co-edited, 1980

Canadian Punjabi issue of the Preet Lari, 1986
Munch Katha, co-edited, 2002
Om Parkash, 2005

References[edit]
1.

Jump up^ "LEELA". Archived from the original on 24 October 2009.

Priscila Uppal (born 1974 Ottawa) is a Canadian poet, novelist, and playwright. She graduated
from Hillcrest High School in 1993, and currently teaches literature and creative writing at York
University in Toronto.[1] In 2007, her book of poetry Ontological Necessities was shortlisted for
the Griffin Poetry Prize.[2]
Contents
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1 Bibliography
1.1 Poetry
1.2 Fiction
1.3 Non-Fiction
1.4 Anthologies as editor
1.5 Anthologies as contributor
2 References
3 External links

Bibliography[edit]
Poetry[edit]

How to Draw Blood From a Stone. Exile Editions, Ltd. 1998. ISBN 978-1-55096-230-7.

Confessions of a Fertility Expert. Exile Editions, Ltd. 1999. ISBN 978-1-55096-550-6.

Pretending to Die. Exile Editions, Ltd. 2001. ISBN 978-1-55096-519-3.

Live Coverage. Exile Editions, Ltd. 2003. ISBN 978-1-55096-571-1.

Cover Before Striking, Lyricalmyrical Press, 2004, ISBN 978-0-9736588-4-2

Holocaust Dream, MacLaren Arts Centre, 2005, ISBN 978-0-9693555-9-5 (photographs

by Daniel Ehrenworth)

Ontological Necessities. Exile Editions, Ltd. 2006. ISBN 978-1-55096-045-7. (shortlisted

for the 2007 Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize)

Traumatology, Exile Editions, 2010, ISBN 978-1-55096-139-3

Winter Sport: Poems, Mansfield Press, 2010, ISBN 978-1-894469-49-4

Successful Tragedies, Bloodaxe Books, 2010, ISBN 978-1-85224-860-4

Fiction[edit]

The Divine Economy of Salvation, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2002, ISBN 978-156512-365-6; Doubleday Canada, 2003, ISBN 978-0-385-65805-8

To Whom It May Concern, Doubleday Canada, 2009, ISBN 978-0-385-65993-2

M. G. Vassanji
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from M.G. Vassanji)
M. G. Vassanji
Born

Moyez G. Vassanji,
30 May 1950

Kenya
Occupation novelist and editor, academic
Nationality

Canadian

Alma mater Massachusetts Institute of

Technology and the University of
Pennsylvania,
Genres

novels, short stories, memoir, and a

biography

Moyez G. Vassanji, CM (born 30 May 1950) is a novelist and editor, who writes under the
name M. G. Vassanji.[1][2] A citizen of Canada, Vassanji's identity easily straddles three
continents.
M. G. Vassanji was born in Kenya and raised in Tanzania. He attended the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania, where he specialized in nuclear
physics, before moving to Canada as a postdoctoral fellow in 1978. From 1980 to 1989 he was a
research associate at the University of Toronto. During this period he developed a keen interest
in medieval Indian literature and history, co-founded and edited a literary magazine (The Toronto
South Asian Review, later renamed The Toronto Review of Contemporary Writing Abroad), and
began writing fiction. In 1989, with the publication of his first novel, The Gunny Sack, he was
invited to spend a season at the International Writing Program of the University of Iowa. In 1996
he was a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study in Shimla, India.
M.G. Vassanji is one of Canada's most acclaimed writers. He has published six novels, two
collections of short stories, a memoir of his travels in India, and a biography of Mordecai
Richler. His work has appeared in various countries and several languages. Vassanji has been
nominated for the Giller Prize for best work of fiction in Canada three times, winning twice. He
has also been awarded the Commonwealth Regional Prize (Africa), and the Governor-General's
Prize for nonfiction. His work has also been shortlisted for the Rogers Prize, the GovernorGeneral's Prize in Canada for fiction, as well as the Crossword Prize in India. His most recent
book, set in Tanzania, was published in Canada in 2012. He is a member of the Order of
Canada and has been awarded several honorary doctorates.
Contents

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1 Themes
2 Awards and honours
3 Bibliography
3.1 Novels
3.2 Short story collections
3.3 Non-fiction collections
4 References
5 External links

Themes[edit]
The focus of Vassanji's work is the situation of East African Indians. As a secondary theme,
members of this community (like himself) later undergo a second migration to Europe, Canada,
or the United States. Vassanji examines how the lives of his characters are affected by these
migrations: "[the Indian diaspora] is very important...once I went to the US, suddenly the Indian
connection became very important: the sense of origins, trying to understand the roots of India
that we had inside us" (Kanaganayakam, p. 21)[citation needed]. Vassanji looks at the relations between
the Indian community, the native Africans and the colonial administration. Though few of his
characters ever return to India, the country's presence looms throughout his work; his 2007
novel The Assassins Song, however, is set almost entirely in India, where it was received as an
Indian novel.
Vassanji is concerned with the effects of history and the interaction between personal and public
histories. Public history is memory and folk history, as well as colonial history, all three of which
are interrogated in his work. The colonial history of Kenya and Tanzania serves as the backdrop
for much of his work; in the Assassin's Song, however, he tackles Indian folk culture and myths.
It is, however, the personal histories of the main characters that drive the narrative. Vassanji's
presentation of the past is never cut-and-dried. He avoids the impression of, a simple, linear,
historical truth emerging. In much of his work the mysteries of the past remain unresolved.
(Kanaganayakam p. 22)[citation needed]. He consistently refuses to be pigeonholed by nationality or
faith, attempts to do which he finds offensive and malicious.[citation needed]Vassanji's writings have
increasingly received attention by a number of literary critics who have focused on issues such as
migration, diaspora, citizenship, gender and ethnicity.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]
Awards and honours[edit]
Vassanji's work has received considerable critical acclaim. The Gunny Sack won a
regional Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1990. In 1994, he won the Harbourfront Festival
Prize in recognition of his "achievement in and contribution to the world of letters." That year he
was also one of twelve Canadians chosen for Maclean's Magazine's Honour Roll. Vassanji won

the inaugural Giller Prize in 1994 for The Book of Secrets. He again won the Giller Prize in 2003
for The In-Between World of Vikram Lall. He was the first writer to win the Giller Prize more
than once. (In 2004, Alice Munro became the prize's second repeat winner). In 2006, When She
Was Queen was shortlisted for the City of Toronto Book Award. The Assassin's Song, released in
2007, was short-listed for the 2007 Giller Prize, the Rogers Prize, and the Governor General's
Prize in Canada, as well as the Crossword Prize in India.
In 2009 his travel memoir, A Place Within: Rediscovering India, won the Governor-General's
Prize for nonfiction.
In 2005, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada.
Bibliography[edit]
Novels[edit]

The Gunny Sack (1989) ISBN 0-385-66065-0

No New Land (1991) ISBN 0-7710-8722-5

The Book of Secrets (1994) ISBN 0-312-15068-7

Amriika (1999) ISBN 0-7710-8725-X

The In-Between World of Vikram Lall (2003) ISBN 0-385-65991-1

The Assassin's Song (2007) ISBN 0-385-66351-X

The Magic of Saida (2012) ISBN 9780385667142

Short story collections[edit]

Uhuru Street (1992)

When She Was Queen (2005)

Non-fiction collections[edit]

A Place Within (2008)

"[Mordecai Richler]" (2008)