The Gunny Sack

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

The Gunny Sack, M.G. Vassanji’s first novel, originally appeared in
1989, but this reprint is the first time that it has been published in
Canada, presumably on account of his becoming the first writer to win
the Giller prize twice—for The Book of Secrets (1994) and The
In-Between World of Vakram Lall (2003).

Vassanji has taken upon himself the task of chronicling what might be
called an Indian diaspora—in this case, primarily to Zanzibar and
present-day Tanzania. His novels are essentially sagas tracing the
characters’ movements over several generations; they are studies in
adaptation or the failure to adapt, in the personal challenges and often
tragedies resulting from the clash of cultures. For non-Indian readers
the numerous characters, their names and interrelationships, can be
confusing, even frustrating, though a map and a family tree are both
provided. Yet these difficulties are more than offset by the fascinating
insights gained into a totally different but rich and intriguing way of
life.

The Gunny Sack is a worthy predecessor to the better-known novels. The
sack in question contains humble memorabilia that trigger the
re-creation of a family’s history (older readers may be reminded of
the grandmother’s patchwork quilt in Ernest Buckler’s The Mountain
and the Valley). From the opening words—“Memory, Ji Bai would say,
is this old sack here”—it is clear that we are in the presence of a
writer with a style all his own, simple but resonant in its effortless
originality. The novel represents the distinguished debut of a now
even-more-distinguished novelist.