num_pages: 352
description: The Book of Secrets is a spellbinding novel of generations and the sweep of history that begins in 1988 in Dar es Salaam, when the 1913 diary of a British colonial officer is found in a shopkeeper's back room. The diary enflames the curiosity of a retired schoolteacher, Pius Fernandes, whose obsession with the stories it contains gradually connects the past with the present. Inhabiting the story is a memorable cast of characters, part of an Asian community in East Africa, whose lives and fates we follow over the course of seven decades. Rich in detail and description, M. G. Vassanji's award-winning novel magnificently conjures setting and the realm of eras past as it explores the state of living in exile from one's home and from oneself.
language: English
title: The Book of Secrets
titlecomplete: The Book of Secrets
genres: Fiction, Historical, African Literature, Canadian Literature, Canada, Tanzania, Historical Fiction, 20th Century, Literary Fiction, Africa
ratings_count: 1174
awards: awardedAt: 757411200000
name: Scotiabank Giller Prize
publisher: Emblem Editions