7 - ‘The Multinational's Song’: The Global Reception of M. G. Vassanji

Summary

On his author website, M. G. Vassanji makes his own multinational status clear: ‘If pressed, Vassanji considers himself African Asian Canadian; attempts to pigeonhole him along communal (religious) or other lines, however, he considers narrow-minded, malicious, and oppressive.’ One of the vanguard of writers from the South Asian diaspora in Canada, Vassanji is indisputably at the core of contemporary Canadian writing. Having won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Africa) and twice the Giller Award (one of Canada's most prestigious literary prizes), and having been awarded the Order of Canada in recognition of his literary service to the country, it is fruitful to ponder why Vassanji's work has been so successful with a Canadian audience, in university settings and for a public readership, and with global readers alike.

Vassanji has without question reached the status of a major author. In addition to his awards, he has been reviewed in newspapers and magazines around the world and been interviewed by high-profile talk show hosts on radio and television. His fiction is studied in universities and high schools and read in book clubs and coffee shops. I suggest that Vassanji's negotiation of the complexities of ‘Indo’, ‘African’ and ‘Canadian’ identities in his fiction and nonfiction (set in India, Kenya, Tanzania and Canada) as well as in his own editorial and critical work, contribute to the ever-fluctuating conversations in public discourse about globalization, migration and flexible conceptions of home and national affiliation.