The Assassin's Song

(Paperback, Main)

---

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Karsan Dargawalla, heir to the shrine of a mysterious, medieval sufi begins to tell the story of his family and the destroyed shrine in the aftermath of the violence that gripped western India in 2002. His tale begins in the 1960s, and young Karsan wishes above all else to be ordinary. and when he is accepted to Harvard he can't resist the opportunity to escape his hereditary obligation. After a bitter quarrel with his father that leads him to abdicate his successorship, he marries and has a son in Canada, but after tragedy strikes in Canada and India, he is drawn back after thirty years to see if anything is left for him. A story of grand historical sweep and intricate personal drama, a stunning evocation of the physical and emotional landscape of a man caught between the ancient and the modern, between legacy and discovery, between the most daunting filial obligation and the most undeniable personal yearning-The Assassin's Song is a heartbreaking ballad of a life irrevocably changed.

Reviews

Vassanji is one of the unsung greats of African literature . . . Making a general virtue of its own exceptionalism, The Assassin's Song is both particular and universal, which is one of the marks of great literature. Historical novel, bildungsroman and terrorist thriller all rolled into one, it is above all a celebration of religious tolerance, which is something more necessary now than ever in Gujarat and elsewhere. -- Giles Foden * * Guardian * *
The book ends and you can't sleep. The characters and tales toss around in dreams. An unforgettable novel. -- Yasmin Alibhai-Brown * * Independent * *

Masterful . . . MG Vassanji may have been compared to Salman Rushdie by virtue of his subject matter but his clean, detached writing style is much more penetrable.

-- Tania Ahsa * * Metro * *
Vassanji draws on his own experience . . . [and] this spiritual aspect gives The Assassin's Song weight . . . the prose is also his most polished and precise. Most of all, the novel recognizes that a cultural or religious inheritance is not a birthright; it must be practised, like a song or a prayer, if it is to refine the crudeness of the world into beauty. -- Sameer Rahim * * Telegraph * *
Vassanji writes with great charm and old-fashioned wisdom. -- Kate Saunders * * The Times * *
Confident, lyrical writing. * * Daily Telegraph * *
It's a compelling story, serious but very human, in which communities are transformed and English metaphysical poets rub against Indian ginans. A fine book, elegant and emotive. -- James Smart * * Guardian * *
A grand sweep of Indian history. * * Metro * *
Vassanji tells a supremely poetic story of 13th century sufi-mysticism, snake swallowing magic and Hindu-Muslims schisms to make post-colonial writing exquisitely, tragically new. -- Arifa Akbar * * Independent * *

Author Bio

M.G. Vassanji is the author of five acclaimed novels: The Gunny Sack, which won a regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize; No New Land; The Book of Secrets, which won the very first Giller Prize; Amiriika; and The In-Between World of Vikram Lall, which also received the giller Prize. He lives in Toronto with his wife and two sons.