The Assassin's Song
A novel
In the aftermath of the brutal violence that gripped western India in 2002, Karsan Dargawalla, heir to Pirbaag—the shrine of a mysterious, medieval sufi—begins to tell the story of his family and the shrine now destroyed. His tale opens in the 1960s: young Karsan is next in line after his father to assume lordship of the Shrine of the Wanderer, and take his place as a representative of God to the multitudes who come there. But he longs to be “just ordinary”—to play cricket and be part of the exciting world he reads about in the stacks of newspapers a truck driver brings him from all across India. And when, to his utter amazement, he is accepted at Harvard, he…
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June 25, 2013M.G. Vassanji is the author of ten novels, three collections of short stories, a travel memoir about India, a memoir of East Africa, and a biography of Mordecai Richler. He is twice winner of the Giller Prize (1994, 2003) for best work of fiction in Canada; the Governor General's Prize (2009) for best work of nonfiction; the Harbourfront Festival Prize; the Commonwealth First Book Prize (Africa, 1990); and the Bressani Prize. The Assassin's Song was shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the Governor General’s Prize, the Writers Trust Award, and India's Crossword Prize. Nostalgia, his dystopian novel, was a finalist for CBC's Canada Reads. His work has been translated into Arabic, Dutch, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish,…