Authors: M.G. Vassanji

The Gunny Sack

Also by MG Vassanji

The In-Between World of Vikram Lall
Amriika
The Book of Secrets
No New Land
Uhuru Street

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisher—or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency—is an infringement of the copyright law.

Anchor Canada and colophon are trademarks.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Vassanji, M. G.
The gunny sack / M.G. Vassanji.

eISBN: 978-0-307-37515-5

I. Title.

PS8593.A87G8 2005 C813′.54 C2004-906896-2

Excerpt from “Vacillation” by W. B. Yeats from
The Poems of W. B. Yeats
, edited by Richard J. Finneran © 1933, Macmillan Publishing Company,
renewed 1961 by Bertha Georgie Yeats.

Excerpt from “Utendi wa Inkishafi” in
Anthology of Swahili Poetry
, edited by Ali A. Jahadhmy, Heinemann Educational Books (East Africa), Nairobi, 1975.

Published in Canada by
Anchor Canada, a division of
Random House of Canada Limited

Visit Random House of Canada Limited’s website:
www.randomhouse.ca

v3.1

For Nuru,
With gratitude

From man’s blood-sodden heart are sprung
Those branches of the night and day
Where the gaudy moon is hung.
What’s the meaning of all song?
“Let all things pass away.”

W. B. Yeats

enga taa katika pepo
haiziwiliki izimikapo sasa mi
huona izimishiye

[Behold the lantern in the wind
now beyond help
you see it extinguished]

Acknowledgements
.

My thanks to Zulfikar Ghose, Réshard Gool, Peter Nazareth for encouragement; Kulsum Bai Hasham for conversations; Vicky Unwin and AWS for being there; the Ontario Arts Council and Multiculturalism Directorate (Canada) for assistance; David Rowe for kindness. Also to Jane Harley for her patience with the gunny and Susheila Nasta for an exhaustive reading of it, and to Nizar Ebrahim for hospitality. I am indebted to Mzee Salum Majutu and Baraka Hamisi for a pointer on vocabulary.

Author’s Note
.

The non-English words—which are mostly in Swahili or Cutchi-Gujarati—are intended to be integral to the text. In most cases their meanings are obvious in context, or explicit. The Glossary provided should be useful, but I hope it is not so necessary as to become an impediment. In using it the reader should bear in mind that the meanings given are particular to a place, time, and group of people and might not agree with dictionaries. I have also taken liberties with language, using “Swahili” for “Kiswahili” and English plural forms for Swahili words. Thus: Mshenzis, Mdachis. These usages have not been entirely uncommon. The map should make some places more concrete but I hope, like the Glossary, it is ultimately dispensable. This is a work of fiction, with some historical events and characters as background. The Shamsi community is fictitious, as are the towns Kaboya and Matamu and much else.