WHAT YOU ARE

From M.G. Vassanji, two-time Giller Prize winner and winner of the Governor General's Literary Award, comes a finely crafted collection of short fiction that explores the tensions between remembering past homes and belonging in new ones.

Weaving between wistful memories of youthful ambition and the compromises and comforts of age, travelling between the streets of Dar es Salaam and Toronto, the characters in these stories must negotiate distance – between here and there; between lives imagined and lives lived; between expectation and disappointment; between inclusion and exclusion.

Throughout, Vassanji engages passionately with the intellectual and political questions that inspire him as a writer and a citizen, while always matching the energy of his ideas with the empathy and emotional depth he invests in his characters. As with all Vassanji's finest work, What You Are stands as a model of artistic integrity and clarity of vision.

M.G. VASSANJI is the author of nine novels, two collections of short stories, two memoirs, and a biography of Mordecai Richler. He is twice winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize (1994, 2003); the Governor General's Prize (2009); the Harbourfront Festival Prize (1993); the Commonwealth First Book Prize (1990); and the Bressani Prize (1994). The Assassin's Song was also shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the Governor General's Prize, the Writers Trust Award, and India's Crossword Prize. His work has been translated into eleven languages. In June 2015, M.G. Vassanji was awarded the Canada Council Molson Prize for the Arts.