In 1988, a retired schoolteacher named Pius Fernandes receives an old diary found in the back room of an East African shop. Written in 1913 by a British colonial administrator, the diary captivates Fernandes, who begins to research the coded history he encounters in its terse, laconic entries. What he uncovers is a story of forbidden liaisons and simmering vengeances, family secrets and cultural exiles--a story that leads him on an investigative journey through his own past and Africa's.
The Book of Secrets
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Winner of the first Giller Prize for Canadian fiction in 1994, The Book of Secrets is an outstanding historical novel set in East Africa. The best of M.G. Vassanji's early novels, it transforms the history of South Asians in Kenya and Tanzania from 1913 to 1988 into an elegantly written and totally absorbing narrative that is part love story, part war story, part mystery, part national history, and part journey of self-discovery.
When retired history teacher Pius Fernandes finds the 1913 diary of Alfred Corbin, a British colonial officer, he vows to tell the story of the slim, brittle book and its owners over the years. Pius vividly recreates the colonial world of the inexperienced Corbin and the fragile Indian-African community under his rule. In atmospheric prose rich in local colour, Vassanji imagines a cast of varied and convincing characters, from the tough-talking spy Maynard and the spiritual leader Jamali to the mysterious and tragic beauty Mariamu and the jet-setting movie-star look-alikes Ali and Rita. At the heart of the story are the feisty shopkeeper Pipa and his son Aku (whose true father is the central secret in The Book of Secrets). Pius's research eventually leads him to tell his own story of immigration and longing, and finally to a re-evaluation of who he is. Straddling the colonial and the post-independence eras, The Book of Secrets compassionately explores the ambiguous identities of Indian and British migrants in East Africa. In the process it puts a very human face on a little-known side of Africa's tempestuous past, as well as asking searching questions about the ways in which history is gathered and told and to whom history's stories really belong. --John C. Ball --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Winner of Canada's esteemed Giller Prize, this complex novel is at once a story of the British Empire in Africa and a very postmodern meditation on the allures and pitfalls of narrative. It's set in the racial melting pot of East Africa, where African, Arab, Indian, English and German cultures mesh. The plot has two major strands: the present, in which an Indian-born retired history teacher, Pius Fernandes, discovers a diary written by Alfred Corbin, an English consul stationed in British East Africa (now Kenya) in 1913; and the past of the diary entries themselves, whose gaps and omissions Fernandes imaginatively fills with his own narrative. Corbin is posted to Kikono, a small town near Mt. Kilimanjaro, where he falls in love with his housekeeper, Mariamu, a young local woman betrothed to a bumbling shopkeeper. After the marriage, she bears a son, Ali, who has suspiciously light-colored skin and gray eyes. The second part of the novel follows "dashing" Ali's adventures as a successful salesman who moves to London with his young wife, Rita, who as a girl was a student of Fernandes's?and with whom he was in love. In the present day, Rita visits Fernandes in Africa and ultimately convinces him to give up his prying into the lives of "those who've lived a little more intensely than their neighbors." The book is lush with evocations of East African physical, cultural and historical landscapes. But energy is lost as Vassanji indulges in discursive tangents about the nature of history at the expense of sustained dramatic storytelling.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
By John Mutford
Format:Paperback
In M. G. Vassanji's The Book Of Secrets one would expect to find a world of intrigue and mystery. One would expect to be as caught up with this story as a wife reading love letters to her husband that she didn't write. Nothing that compelling here. The title, it seems, is just a marketing ploy.
It's true, a reader could find plenty to talk about in this award-winning book. It has many themes that are worthy of conversation. Discuss amongst yourselves: In searching for the truth behind human motivations, it is likely only more questions will be found. Or, Human drama is more intrapersonal in peaceful times and interpersonal in times of world conflict. Or, Despite a setting unfamiliar to most Canadians, this novel could just as easily be set in Canada's history. But reading group fodder aside, this book is still boring.
It is simply hard to care about who the father of Miriamu's child is. Was it Pipa? Was it Alfred Corbin? Was it her step-father? Who cares? While this might seem callous, Vassanji does not make you feel enough concern for these characters to garner much interest. As the novel begins, it appears to revolve mostly around a British colonialist named Alfred Corbin. A little too quickly the focus switches to Pipa, an Indian immigrant. And near the end the focus is on Pius Fernandes, a local teacher who was researching the lives of the aforementioned characters. The only one of these characters developed sufficiently is Pipa. A reader can readily see what drives him and it is easy to feel concern and compassion for this man. However, Corbin was dropped like the proverbial hot potato just as a reader would start to find him compelling. Pius, is explored a little more in depth than Corbin but not adequately to suggest any plausible reason why he is obsessed with the mysteries of the past.
All in all, this book was a let down from the onset. Given the title The Book of Secrets one expects to be engaged more than this, but without sufficient character development the plot falls flat.
It's true, a reader could find plenty to talk about in this award-winning book. It has many themes that are worthy of conversation. Discuss amongst yourselves: In searching for the truth behind human motivations, it is likely only more questions will be found. Or, Human drama is more intrapersonal in peaceful times and interpersonal in times of world conflict. Or, Despite a setting unfamiliar to most Canadians, this novel could just as easily be set in Canada's history. But reading group fodder aside, this book is still boring.
It is simply hard to care about who the father of Miriamu's child is. Was it Pipa? Was it Alfred Corbin? Was it her step-father? Who cares? While this might seem callous, Vassanji does not make you feel enough concern for these characters to garner much interest. As the novel begins, it appears to revolve mostly around a British colonialist named Alfred Corbin. A little too quickly the focus switches to Pipa, an Indian immigrant. And near the end the focus is on Pius Fernandes, a local teacher who was researching the lives of the aforementioned characters. The only one of these characters developed sufficiently is Pipa. A reader can readily see what drives him and it is easy to feel concern and compassion for this man. However, Corbin was dropped like the proverbial hot potato just as a reader would start to find him compelling. Pius, is explored a little more in depth than Corbin but not adequately to suggest any plausible reason why he is obsessed with the mysteries of the past.
All in all, this book was a let down from the onset. Given the title The Book of Secrets one expects to be engaged more than this, but without sufficient character development the plot falls flat.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A beautiful novel about how all the events in this planet are connected whether you are aware of it or not. The characters are forced by the circumstances that surround them to be involved in situations which in principle do not concern them (A lot of Indians or Massais could not care less if the Germans defeated the British in World War I or viceversa but they have to fight in a conflict without a clue of the reasons behind it). But for the main characters of the novel, such unseen force is the same one that will lead them to explore aspects of their life which they did not even know that existed. The perfect example is how Pipa found his wife and the subsequent birth of a son who will follow its roots eventhough he is not aware of them.
Our existence is fun, tragic, confusing, arbitrary, ambiguous, etc. and for the same token many aspects of this novel follow the same pattern. The most important ones are the many unfinished events, which by the simple force of inertia find an opportunity that will make sense at least for someone, later on.
The author seems to remind us that life will always surprise us. It is simply to ample for anyone to imagine all the possible outcomes.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I read this book as a book report book for my school.. I love this book! It is beautifully written, and the story is just...sort of like a journey through the past, through "the book of secrets." .. I had that beautiful "sigh" feeling after I finished reading this book.. it's just really awesome!
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good choice Giller Prize people!
Originally I decided to read this book because it won the Giller Prize.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Read more
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Read more
Published on Jun 6 2008 by NorthVan Dave
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good book
Good book. The only thing I've read that impressed me more was The System by Roy Valentine. I got it here at amazon. You have to read this book.
Published on Oct 2 2004
2.0 out of 5 stars
Against the current...
I'll go against the current, here. Yes, the book depicted an unusual and interesting side of African history (hence the 2 stars), but I did not find the story itself engaging and... Read more
Published on July 15 2004
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wow - I loved this book!
I read this after having lived in East Africa for a few years. It remains one of my all time favourites. Do yourself a favour and read it.
Published on Jun 19 2004 by David C Polk
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Other Side of Africa
The author managed to write a novel that reads like a diary, a fascinating history oh Kenya and Tanzania from 1912 until 1988. Read more
Published on Jan 18 2002 by lvkleydorff
4.0 out of 5 stars
�It is a magic bottle, this book, full of captured spirits"
The narrator of this fascinating novel, Pius Fernandes, uses this description to refer to an old diary, which he has received from one of his former students, a shopkeeper in Dar... Read more
Published on July 15 2001 by Mary Whipple
5.0 out of 5 stars
Splendid, a gripping page turner. Read it.
It is not only my facination with Africa that made this book special. Vassanji really makes his characters come out of the book, inprints them in your head so they become so real... Read more
Published on July 15 1998 by Rose M. Chopitea
4.0 out of 5 stars
Haunting tale of a marginal community as an empire fades.
M.G. Vassanji's new novel, The Book of Secrets, is a haunting story -- at once a
detective tale, a historical story, and a family saga. Read more
detective tale, a historical story, and a family saga. Read more
Published on Nov 24 1996
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