The Book Of Secrets By M. G. Vassanji

New historicism is a literary theory of interpretation and re- interpretation of Contemporary literature. It generates cultural, social, economic and political consciousness of contemporary issues in literature. Infact, New historicism relies on the literary devices such as anectodes, thick descriptions, and counter histories. Vassanji, an influential third category immigrant Canadian writer has contributed worthy literary genres. The present paper entitled “The Historical Ellipses in M. G. Vassanji’s The Book of Secrets” focuses on how Vassanji traces the metamorphosis of Tanzania from an acquiescent colony into an egalitarian country. Also, the writer has incorporated the various historical acts, events and situation by negotiating the world
G. Vassanji, the third category immigrant writer in Canada has won Canada’s prestigious Giller prize twice. Vassanji one of the prominent writers has seven novels, two short story collections and three non- fiction works to his credit. He scrutinizes the themes of identity, displacement and racial relations and moreover he attempts to preserve and recreate oral histories and mythologies. A new historical interpretation of Vassanji’s The Book of Secrets exhibits the metamorphosis of the contemporary cultural identity of a particular community. Repression is an offshoot apposite designating the ordeal of the Indian immigrants under the command of warfare. The commercial and social routines of the Shamsis are disquieted by the callous cacophony of the hostilities between Germans and English as described in The Book of Secrets, “It was late in the night Pipa and his wife had woken early that day, before dawn to the distant sounds of guns and like the rest of the town had waited in anticipation of whatever else was to happen” (122).
The evolution of Shamsi community has been foregrounding the human mobilization of fourteenth and fifteenth century in terms of commercial traffic, pilgrimage and geographic expedition owing to the widening of topographical avenues. In general, India’s coastal provinces are extensively affected by this upsurge of trespassing precincts especially for lucrative
The African diaspora is one of the influential characteristics features of diaspora which is analogous to that of the Jewish, Greek and the Armenian ethnicities. The expression of immigration and diaspora intersperse the confluences of migratory trajectories. Migration has been the community’s forte regardless of the corollary condition of factors patronising it, at times migration of convenience and occasionally migration taken out of calamity. The first wave of immigration from India to coastal towns of East Africa is prompted by convenience and opportunities of constructing better prospects. However, the Shamsi s appeared to be for eternity on move in the terrains of new home seeking security and superior affluence. The traits to acclimatise, relocate and recommence make them more compatible and