Word to your druthers

For years, we've been hearing about the death of print, that soon we'll all be reading books on screens. I for one welcome our electronic publishing overlords. If it means more people reading e-books, it means books still have value; they'll still exist for our enjoyment, education and entertainment. And so will the ever-popular Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival, now in its 12th year.

The fest kicks off on April 21 with its Grand Prix winner, Haitian-Canadian novelist and journalist Dany Laferrière, whose lifetime of globally relevant work sets the tone for the following four days of panel discussions, readings, book launches and soirées.

Politics, as usual, are not shied away from. The Writers in Peril series addresses control issues in cyberspace, censorship, war crimes and more. Non-fiction writers Elizabeth Abbott, Denise Chong, Sarah Elton and Cleo Paskal give their take on telling the truth. American novelist James Frey also talks truth, scandal and moving on as a writer.

Pulitzer Prize-winning Irish poet Paul Muldoon reads from his work and offers a poetry workshop, giving insight into his unique style and sometimes strange (yet perfect) word choice. India takes the spotlight as poet and critic Koyamparambath Satchidanandan introduces his work and M.G. Vassanji talks about the meaning of home and rediscovering India. Lebanese poet Joumana Haddad receives the fest's Arab Literary Prize. Novelist

Full report here Hour.ca

South Asian writers focus of Montreal's Blue Met

Governor General's Award-winning author M.G. Vassanji and Mexican novelist Cristina Rivera Garza are among the literary stars who will appear at Montreal's Blue Metropolis festival next month.

The annual festival devoted to writing from around the world announced its lineup on Tuesday, March 30. Toronto-based Vassanji, author of Giller Prize winner The In-Between World of Vikram Lall, won the Governor General's Literary Award this year for A Place Within: Rediscovering India.

He appears in a program of South Asian writers with two authors from India — poet and playwright Koyamparambath Satchidanandan and multilingual children's author and publisher Sandhya Rao.

The multilingual Blue Met program also focuses on Arab, Portuguese and Spanish writers as well as a group of Quebec literary stars.

Full report here  CBCNews

Vassanji doesn't talk. At least not easily!

MG Vassanji writes fasinating books, but it is certainly not easy to get him to talk, as Sam Miller, who was in conversation with him at the launch of his new book, A Place Within, in Delhi, discovered. "I am a great listener," said the author at one point!

The book, a non-fiction work on the author's visits and reactions to the country of his ancestors, predictably has a potpourri of subjective reactions from the author. He started visiting India in 1993, and since then has been back about 10 times! Interestingly he remarked that he thought he could do an India book after a visit, a la Naipaul, but found out that he couldn't.

The book points out how identities are being 'purified in today's world. he pointed out to the plurality of religious practices followed by the Khojas in the past, but which are getting lost today.

This is an intimate chronicle filled with fantastic stories and unforgettable characters. Vassanji has travelled widely, though Gujarat forms a big part of his writing. Predictably, as his forefathers are from Gujarat and the violence that has rocked the state formed the subject of his last, greatly acclaimed novel, The Assassin's Song. Vassanji belongs to the Khoja community, and connecting to them in different places, he said, was the great during his visits.

The book is rich with images of bustling city streets and contrasting Indian landscapes, from the southern tip of India to the Himalayan foothills, from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea.

He also spoke of his fondness for Dar es Salaam, the Tanzanian capital that he had spent his childhood in. , but which is also losing its Indian communities today.

Major authors to be India in March

After the eagerly followed visit by Orhan Pamuk to Bombay, Kamila Shamsie and MG Vassanji are to be in India in March for the launch of their books.

Shamsie will be here on tour for her ambitious new novel, Burnt Shadows, which travels across modern history, starting from Guantanamo Bay and to Nagasaki, Delhi and other places resonant in our recent past.

Vassanji meanwhile has written his first non fiction book, In Place Within, which explores the country of his birth, India. His previous novel, The Assassin's Song, was a searching look at Gujarat after the 2002 riots and won wide acclaim globally.

Vassanji turns to non fiction

Novelist MG Vassanji has turned to non fiction and is going to write on India, the homeland of his ancestors.

Vassanji’s grandparents left India to settle in Africa. An African by birth, Vassanji’s relationship with India in childhood was complex and contradictory, fed by legends and stories. Now, in this powerfully moving tale of personal discovery, he explores his connection to the land that for so long was a place only of the imagination for him. Part travelogue and description, part history and meditation, and above all a quest for a lost homeland, A Place Within begins with diary entries from Vassanji’s very first wide-eyed trip to India in 1993, then moves on to accounts from his subsequent and obsessive visits. An intimate chronicle filled with fantastic stories and unforgettable characters, A Place Within is rich with images of bustling city streets and contrasting Indian landscapes, from the southern tip of India to the Himalayan foothills, from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea. Here, too, are the amazing histories of Delhi, Shimla, Gujarat and Kerala, and of Vassanji’s own family, members of the Khoja sect that draws on both Hinduism and Islam.

Vassanji is the author of six novels: The Gunny Sack, which won a Commonwealth Prize; No New Land; The Book of Secrets, which won the very first Giller Prize; Amriika; The In-Between World of Vikram Lall, which also received the Giller Prize in 2003, and The Assassin’s Song; which was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Award for Fiction. He is also the author of two collections of short fiction, Uhuru Street and Elvis Raja.