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The Book of Secrets cover

The Book of Secrets

M. G. Vassanji

1

award won

8

score

#1373 of 8,085 books · #221 in Historical Fiction

Won the Giller Prize (1994).

The novel begins in 1988 when the 1913 diary of Alfred Corbin, a British colonial administrator, is found in an East African shopkeeper's backroom. The diary - and the secrets it both reveals and conceals - enflames the curiosity of retired schoolteacher Pius Fernandes. Pius's obsessive pursuit of history leads him on an investigative journey through his own past and a nation's. Vasanji brings to vivid life the landscapes, the towns, and the cities of East Africa from the days of the Great War, through independence, all the way to the close of the eighties. Rich in detail and character, pathos and humor, and evocative of time and place, The Book of Secrets juxtaposes different cultures and generations and tells us something fresh about the nature of storytelling.

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Publisher
McClelland & Stewart
ISBN-13
9780771087295
Topics
Colonialism in East AfricaMemory and storytellingUncovering hidden history

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