Roundtable

A.E.: From your very first novel, The Gunny Sack to The Magic of Saida, you narrate the present in terms of the past (or vice versa) in order to meditate on questions about identity, liminality, hybridity, exile, and belonging. In how far can all that be said to reflect a longing in you for India?

M.G.V.: Or for Africa? I think these questions are all around me—in fact that is true for most people. It’s the world we live in. For many of us from elsewhere, there are chunks of life unexamined, chunks of history unrecorded; there are stories that await to be told, shaped, reimagined and recreated; there are experiences that await to be shared and understood. All that comes with us—we don’t come simply as bodies. It is what we are. And this does not apply only to immigrants to North America and Europe. Joyce wrote about Ireland from Europe; Conrad wrote about far-off places and the sea; British writers still obsess about the First World War.

A.E.: How does your experience as a Kenyan and Tanzanian figure creatively and philosophically in your work?

M.G.V.: Creatively it has been my source of inspiration. It has provided me with characters, scenes, history, and a certain language and rhythm—and a lot of questions. That, of course, has evolved, with my experience as a Canadian and my life in Canada and the United States, and with my university education. Philosophically, if that’s the right word, and if it answers your question, I have found myself operating in a literary and historical near-vacuum. I come from a people who are a minority in India, East Africa, and now Canada. Of course no one is a minority in a truly cosmopolitan society. In Toronto I don’t quite feel as coming from a minority—or I feel that everyone belongs to a certain minority. But culturally, because historically Canada belongs to a European historical and literary tradition, and this is obvious in many ways, I do feel I am operating at the margins. But I should also say that Canada has been by and large the most hospitable to my writing. I believe that non-European histories and cultures will, or should, be considered as part of the new, evolving Canada.

A.E.: Would you consider it accurate if one were to say that you are an African?

M.G.V.: Yes, and Canadian, and of Indian descent. I try not to dwell on this multiplicity too much. Ultimately others will decide how good I was as any of these. Questions of identity obsess the young. I went through that phase, when I came as a student to North America, and I kept chasing myself, in a manner of speaking. But as you grow older you realize that you will never be able to catch yourself—or narrow down who exactly you are.

A.E.: Idi Amin’s repressive rule in Uganda had an impact in the lives of thousands of Indo-Africans in East Africa. How, if at all, did you relate to that political situation existentially?

M.G.V.: Not directly. I was away in the US at the time but I always felt a Tanzanian. Idi Amin was an aberration, and all Ugandans were affected by his rule. Thousands were murdered. The Nile, it is said, turned red. But we live currently in a world of so many horrors…

A.E.: Uprooting the self is always a complex affair; how did you navigate the Canadian literary landscape as a new immigrant in Canada; and based on that experience how would you advice a new immigrant who happens to be a professional writer?

M.G.V.: The only way is to write, and to keep writing—if you can. Sometimes it helps to start your own literary outlet. We started a literary magazine in the 1980s, when there were many people from the Caribbean, East Africa, and South Asia who were writing, had something to say, and were coming across a dead end in terms of publishing. The cultural universe, which is liberal in many (and typical) ways, is surprisingly conservative, and often insular and ignorant, about other cultures. (I’ve found engineers and scientists more exposed and liberal towards others.) This is understandable, but it is that world that one has had to negotiate against. It is from there that we hear questions such as, Is so-and-so a truly Canadian writer? (Your Canada is obviously dated, you want to reply.) Or get statements about The ten best works of fiction ever published. (Where and in what languages, you want to ask.)

A.E.: You left the safe sanctuary of the very profitable hard sciences (as a physicist) for the unpredictability of an artistic life. In hindsight it was a great decision. But at the moment you were taking that decision, were you worried?

M.G.V.: Theoretical physics, and any pure science, are not safe sanctuaries actually, because they are not practical. I was worried when I left physics. However, my first novel was about to be published, I was confident that it was a good one, and I had almost completed a second novel and a collection of stories. It was time to go. I was not working at the threshold of science, my job was not permanent, and what research I was doing could have been continued by someone else. But what I had to write and create, only I could do.

A.E.: Obama is a fellow Kenyan; what do you think of his performance as the first black president of the USA, especially vis-à-vis Africa?

M.G.V.: We were in tears when he was elected. That shows our naivete—and to be fair, a reflection of our colonial and racial experiences. But America is America, politics is politics, and for me Obama has been a huge disappointment.

A.E.: Thank you for taking the time away from your very hectic schedule to do this; we, at MTLS, appreciate it.

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