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The Gunny Sack
Memory, Ji Bai would say, is this old sack here, this poor dear that nobody has any use for any more.
As the novel begins, Salim Juma, in exile from Tanzania, opens up a gunny sack bequeathed to him by a beloved great-aunt. Inside it he discovers the past — his own family’s history and the story of the Asian experience in East Africa. Its relics and artefacts bring with them the lives of Salim’s Indian great-grandfather, Dhanji Govindji, his extensive family, and all their loves and betrayals.
Dhanji Govindji arrives in Matamu — from Zanzibar, Porbander, and ultimately Junapur — and has a son with an African slave named Bibi Taratibu. Later, growing in prosperity, he marries Fatima, the woman who will bear his other children. But when his half-African son Husein disappears, Dhanji Govindji pays out his fortune in trying to find him again. As the tentacles of the First World War reach into Africa, with the local German colonists fighting British invaders, he spends more and more time searching. One morning he is suddenly he had spent not just his own money but embezzled that of others to finance the quest for his lost son.
“Well, listen, son of Juma, you listen to me and I shall give you your father Juma and his father Husein and his father…”
Part II of the novel is named for Kulsum, who marries Juma, Husein’s son; she is the mother of the narrator, Salim. We learn of Juma’s childhood as a second-class member of his stepmother’s family after his mother, Moti, dies. After his wedding to Kulsum there is a long wait in the unloving bosom of his stepfamily for their first child, Begum. It is the 1950s, and whispers are beginning of the Mau Mau rebellion.
Among the stories tumbling from the gunny sack comes the tailor Edward bin Hadith’s story of the naming of Dar es Salaam, the city Kulsum moves to with her children after her husband’s death. And gradually her son takes over the telling, recalling his own childhood. His life guides the narrative from here on. He remembers his mother’s store and neighbours’ intrigues, the beauty of his pristine English teacher at primary school, cricket matches, and attempts to commune with the ghost of his father. It is a vibrantly described, deeply felt childhood. The nation, meanwhile, is racked by political tensions on its road to independence, which comes about as Salim Juma reaches adolescence. With the surge in racial tension and nationalist rioting, several members of his close-knit community leave the country for England, America, and Canada.
I see this comedy now as an attempt to foil the workings of how else to explain, what else to call, the irrevocable relentless chain of events that unfolded…
The title of Part III, Amina, is the name of Salim’s great unfulfilled love, and will also be the name of his daughter. He meets the first Amina while doing his National Service at Camp Uhuru, a place he feels he has been sent to in error. Amina is African, and their relationship inevitably causes his family anxiety, until the increasingly militant Amina leaves for New York. Salim becomes a teacher at his old school, and marries, but keeps a place for Amina in his heart. When she returns and is arrested by the more and more repressive government, Salim is hurriedly exiled abroad. He leaves his wife and daughter with the promise that he will send for them, knowing that he will not. The novel ends with Salim alone, the last memories coming out of the gunny sack, hoping that he will be his family’s last runaway.
As the novel begins, Salim Juma, in exile from Tanzania, opens up a gunny sack bequeathed to him by a beloved great-aunt. Inside it he discovers the past — his own family’s history and the story of the Asian experience in East Africa. Its relics and artefacts bring with them the lives of Salim’s Indian great-grandfather, Dhanji Govindji, his extensive family, and all their loves and betrayals.
Dhanji Govindji arrives in Matamu — from Zanzibar, Porbander, and ultimately Junapur — and has a son with an African slave named Bibi Taratibu. Later, growing in prosperity, he marries Fatima, the woman who will bear his other children. But when his half-African son Husein disappears, Dhanji Govindji pays out his fortune in trying to find him again. As the tentacles of the First World War reach into Africa, with the local German colonists fighting British invaders, he spends more and more time searching. One morning he is suddenly he had spent not just his own money but embezzled that of others to finance the quest for his lost son.
“Well, listen, son of Juma, you listen to me and I shall give you your father Juma and his father Husein and his father…”
Part II of the novel is named for Kulsum, who marries Juma, Husein’s son; she is the mother of the narrator, Salim. We learn of Juma’s childhood as a second-class member of his stepmother’s family after his mother, Moti, dies. After his wedding to Kulsum there is a long wait in the unloving bosom of his stepfamily for their first child, Begum. It is the 1950s, and whispers are beginning of the Mau Mau rebellion.
Among the stories tumbling from the gunny sack comes the tailor Edward bin Hadith’s story of the naming of Dar es Salaam, the city Kulsum moves to with her children after her husband’s death. And gradually her son takes over the telling, recalling his own childhood. His life guides the narrative from here on. He remembers his mother’s store and neighbours’ intrigues, the beauty of his pristine English teacher at primary school, cricket matches, and attempts to commune with the ghost of his father. It is a vibrantly described, deeply felt childhood. The nation, meanwhile, is racked by political tensions on its road to independence, which comes about as Salim Juma reaches adolescence. With the surge in racial tension and nationalist rioting, several members of his close-knit community leave the country for England, America, and Canada.
I see this comedy now as an attempt to foil the workings of how else to explain, what else to call, the irrevocable relentless chain of events that unfolded…
The title of Part III, Amina, is the name of Salim’s great unfulfilled love, and will also be the name of his daughter. He meets the first Amina while doing his National Service at Camp Uhuru, a place he feels he has been sent to in error. Amina is African, and their relationship inevitably causes his family anxiety, until the increasingly militant Amina leaves for New York. Salim becomes a teacher at his old school, and marries, but keeps a place for Amina in his heart. When she returns and is arrested by the more and more repressive government, Salim is hurriedly exiled abroad. He leaves his wife and daughter with the promise that he will send for them, knowing that he will not. The novel ends with Salim alone, the last memories coming out of the gunny sack, hoping that he will be his family’s last runaway.
352 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1989
15 people are currently reading
276 people want to read
About the author
M.G. Vassanji
29 books166 followersMoyez G. Vassanji was born in Kenya and raised in Tanzania. Before coming to Canada in 1978, he attended MIT and the University of Pennsylvania, where he specialized in theoretical nuclear physics. From 1978-1980 he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Atomic Energy of Canada, and from 1980 to 1989 he was a research associate at the University of Toronto. During this period he developed a keen interest in medieval Indian literature and history, co-founded and edited a literary magazine (The Toronto South Asian Review, later renamed The Toronto Review of Contemporary Writing Abroad), and began writing stories and a novel. In 1989, with the publication of his first novel, The Gunny Sack, he was invited to spend a season at the International Writing Program of the University of Iowa. That year ended his active career in nuclear physics. His contributions there he considers modest, in algebraic models and high spin states. The fact that he was never tenured he considers a blessing for it freed him to pursue his literary career.
Vassanji is the author of six novels and two collections of short stories. His work has appeared in various countries and several languages. His most recent novel, The Assassin's Song, was short-listed for both the Giller Prize and the Governor-General's Prize for best novel in Canada. It has appeared in the US (Knopf) and India (Penguin) and is scheduled to appear in the UK (Canongate).
His wife, Nurjehan, was born in Tanzania. They have two sons, Anil, and Kabir. He lives in Toronto, and visits Africa and India often.
Awards: Giller Prize, twice; Harbourfront Festival Prize; Commonwealth First Book Prize (Africa); Bressani Prize. Order of Canada.
Vassanji is the author of six novels and two collections of short stories. His work has appeared in various countries and several languages. His most recent novel, The Assassin's Song, was short-listed for both the Giller Prize and the Governor-General's Prize for best novel in Canada. It has appeared in the US (Knopf) and India (Penguin) and is scheduled to appear in the UK (Canongate).
His wife, Nurjehan, was born in Tanzania. They have two sons, Anil, and Kabir. He lives in Toronto, and visits Africa and India often.
Awards: Giller Prize, twice; Harbourfront Festival Prize; Commonwealth First Book Prize (Africa); Bressani Prize. Order of Canada.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
October 9, 2007
Another great writer. I've read his other books but found this one to be more challenging. There is a pantheon of characters across generations with names and relationships I had difficulty keeping track of. The failure is mine, not the writer's. This book requires attention and a willingness to look back a few pages and retrace your steps. Nonetheless, a beautifully crafted story.
June 25, 2024
all over the place, ich wusste 75% der zeit nicht was eigentlich grade abgeht
January 16, 2020
Human beings have always migrated across the world. Sometimes they have been forced to by victorious rulers, sometimes due to economic factors or love of adventures, other reasons too. There's so much which has been lost in the mists of Time.... all of which is tantalising and very interesting. From where we come, has always intrigued human beings as much as where we are going. This book is a fascinating look into a small community of people living somewhere in Gujarat, India who changed their religion from Hinduism to Mohammedinism, inspired apparently by a strange fakir who suddenly appeared in their village. Many travelled, in search of prosperity and opportunity to Zanzibar and onwards into the African continent. This is a story of several generations of them, how they lived & earned their livelihood under German rule, then under the British and later after the end of colonialism how they adjusted to African self rule, how they suffered and lived and claimed their unique heritage. Extremely well written it gives a vivid look into the highs and lows of the Indian community in a newly formed country in Africa, their prejudices and their strengths, their sacrifices and rewards, why some left again for other lands and why some stayed while others returned.
April 2, 2017
After reading a Naipul book, Half a Life, also about Africa, and seeing a review by the Times comparing Vassanji to Naipul and Graham Greene (one of my favourite writers), I had to read this book. Having said this, I admit I had some mixed views on this book and the Times review.
I didn't make much connection to Greene other than a story not set in England. Sure there is the point of view of how England affected a former colony, generating (if forced) respect, then hatred. The connection to Naipul is true, as both writers come from the former colonies and have non-traditional view of the mother counrty(and this makes their writing so good).
This is the story of a man and the country Tanganyka (now Tanzania). The story of this man and his family follows the path of immigration of Indians to East Africa, something I knew very little prior to reading this book. The big "ahah" moment came when he mentions how Idi Amin, woke from a dream and expelled all Indians from Uganda in 1974. This was a time when Canada opened its doors to this immigrants. After reading the book I understand this issue more, especially since I was 15 at the time. Sadly there was a lot of descrimination resulting during this period and it saddened me even more realizing what had happened.
The story begins and ends with the gunny sack....kind of a "bag full of stories" told by an aging woman. I liked this premise of the Scheharazade motif but, as the story unfolded, it seemed to get more complicated. Vassanji throws in various Hindi and Sanskrit making it more complicated. There is a dictionary at the back but I found this too distracting from the tale. I also wished that some of the tales were a little longer. There were so many that I skimmed some of them which is too bad, as I saw the importance of this rarely written part of the world. In the end, I found myself thinking of Garcia Marquez for breadth of the entire picture (spanning decades) and only wishing the tales were fewer but more developed. Overall I am glad I read this book.
I didn't make much connection to Greene other than a story not set in England. Sure there is the point of view of how England affected a former colony, generating (if forced) respect, then hatred. The connection to Naipul is true, as both writers come from the former colonies and have non-traditional view of the mother counrty(and this makes their writing so good).
This is the story of a man and the country Tanganyka (now Tanzania). The story of this man and his family follows the path of immigration of Indians to East Africa, something I knew very little prior to reading this book. The big "ahah" moment came when he mentions how Idi Amin, woke from a dream and expelled all Indians from Uganda in 1974. This was a time when Canada opened its doors to this immigrants. After reading the book I understand this issue more, especially since I was 15 at the time. Sadly there was a lot of descrimination resulting during this period and it saddened me even more realizing what had happened.
The story begins and ends with the gunny sack....kind of a "bag full of stories" told by an aging woman. I liked this premise of the Scheharazade motif but, as the story unfolded, it seemed to get more complicated. Vassanji throws in various Hindi and Sanskrit making it more complicated. There is a dictionary at the back but I found this too distracting from the tale. I also wished that some of the tales were a little longer. There were so many that I skimmed some of them which is too bad, as I saw the importance of this rarely written part of the world. In the end, I found myself thinking of Garcia Marquez for breadth of the entire picture (spanning decades) and only wishing the tales were fewer but more developed. Overall I am glad I read this book.
December 3, 2023
'memory, ji bai said, is this gunny sack ...
I can put it all back and shake it and churn it and sift it and start again, re-order memory, draw a new set of lines through these blots, except that each of them is like a black hole, a doorway to a universe ... it can last forever, this game, the past has no end – but no, shehrbanoo, you will not snare me like that, let it end today, this is your last night.'
//
read for a module on afro-asian transcultural memory; this one I really liked! traces the story of several generations of a single indo-tanzanian family from the beginning of the 20th century to the era of independence, conjuring each family member's history from the objects preserved in a single jute gunny sack.
the passages discussing the contingencies of memory are always the best, but there's so much texture to the lives presented here – particularly during the late-imperial era & the maji maji uprisings
I can put it all back and shake it and churn it and sift it and start again, re-order memory, draw a new set of lines through these blots, except that each of them is like a black hole, a doorway to a universe ... it can last forever, this game, the past has no end – but no, shehrbanoo, you will not snare me like that, let it end today, this is your last night.'
//
read for a module on afro-asian transcultural memory; this one I really liked! traces the story of several generations of a single indo-tanzanian family from the beginning of the 20th century to the era of independence, conjuring each family member's history from the objects preserved in a single jute gunny sack.
the passages discussing the contingencies of memory are always the best, but there's so much texture to the lives presented here – particularly during the late-imperial era & the maji maji uprisings
August 25, 2016
Persevered, but I don't know why. This book was boring and not at all engaging. I enjoyed The Assassin's Song by MG Vassanji, so I thought I was in for a good read. Because I only gave this a one star rating I feel somewhat compelled to give examples as to why I did not like the book. I'll say two things. First, Vassanji was unable to teach the reader about the history of the Asian experience in East Africa through the fictitious family saga. Instead you read through pages of a history essay followed by a weak segue to the story within the book. The story did not start until about page 150 and throughout the whole book I wasn't even actually very sure who the main character was - a sign of the confusing writing style and my lack of interest perhaps.
Secondly, this book is hard to understand if you don't share the same heritage background and growing up circumstances as the author. While it's not the author's role to spell everything out to his or her readers, some context would be helpful. For example, say I wrote the following: "So after dinner we all went to Hartleys. Hartleys!! Bliss on a hot summer's eve."
Does that make any sense to you? Of course not. Unless you grew up in St. Lambert on the south shore of Montreal in the 1970s. But if I wrote, "So after dinner we all went to Hartleys. Hartleys!! With 75 cents in your pocket you could get a huge ice cream cone with real cherries. It wasn't just an ice cream shop, it was THE ice cream shop and the added bonus was the scary haunted garage right across the street which local kids would dare each other to enter. Bliss on a hot summer's eve."
Okay, so now you know what Hartleys deserves two exclamation marks. So much of what I read in this novel was like the first example - I had no idea what memories or emotions Vassanji was trying to evoke because he just did not give me enough context.
Finally - I realize this is a third point - you either go all the way with a metaphoric speaking gunny sack or you don't use it at all.
Secondly, this book is hard to understand if you don't share the same heritage background and growing up circumstances as the author. While it's not the author's role to spell everything out to his or her readers, some context would be helpful. For example, say I wrote the following: "So after dinner we all went to Hartleys. Hartleys!! Bliss on a hot summer's eve."
Does that make any sense to you? Of course not. Unless you grew up in St. Lambert on the south shore of Montreal in the 1970s. But if I wrote, "So after dinner we all went to Hartleys. Hartleys!! With 75 cents in your pocket you could get a huge ice cream cone with real cherries. It wasn't just an ice cream shop, it was THE ice cream shop and the added bonus was the scary haunted garage right across the street which local kids would dare each other to enter. Bliss on a hot summer's eve."
Okay, so now you know what Hartleys deserves two exclamation marks. So much of what I read in this novel was like the first example - I had no idea what memories or emotions Vassanji was trying to evoke because he just did not give me enough context.
Finally - I realize this is a third point - you either go all the way with a metaphoric speaking gunny sack or you don't use it at all.
November 6, 2013
This was one of the most readable university books I ever came across. I really enjoyed the different episodes of the different times in the lives of this particular family and their involvement in all the political circumstances they have lived under. The progression from one kind of power to various others was really interesting and gave an insight into the struggles East Africa faced in the past century or so. It becomes increasingly hard to decide who plays the role of a colonial power and if it has only ever been the Europeans in this part of the world.
The development of culture and the influences that are important to this was the most interesting theme of the novel for me. Some passages concerning that made me cringe while reading because it was so horrible to co-experience some scenes. Overall, I would really recommend anyone interested in colonial and postcolonial topics or just in East Africa generally to read Vassanji's novel.
The development of culture and the influences that are important to this was the most interesting theme of the novel for me. Some passages concerning that made me cringe while reading because it was so horrible to co-experience some scenes. Overall, I would really recommend anyone interested in colonial and postcolonial topics or just in East Africa generally to read Vassanji's novel.
March 19, 2007
This was ok. Not as good as The In Between World of Vikram Lal though...read it if you are particularly interested in East Africa or the Indian disapora in Africa.
May 9, 2016
Couldn't finish this book ... gave it 150 pages
June 17, 2019
3.5 Stars
This is a novel steeped in history. I found it to be really immersive. I loved the multiple stories and characters, which does take some getting used to like any multigenerational novel. I loved the use of swahili words and phrases that creep up in the novel too. There are many layers to the characters and the stories. Issues of naming, memory, and interracial connections and tensions all emerge in honest ways. The problems I had with it is that that premise of the gunny sack and physical items being inspiration for stories was not well executed. It seemed to fall to the wayside after the first part and then suddenly reemerged at the end. The third part with Amina also seemed rushed and underdeveloped compared to the previous parts. Overall, I enjoyed this book and was happy to read a multigenerational story of a South Asian Muslim family in East Africa.
This is a novel steeped in history. I found it to be really immersive. I loved the multiple stories and characters, which does take some getting used to like any multigenerational novel. I loved the use of swahili words and phrases that creep up in the novel too. There are many layers to the characters and the stories. Issues of naming, memory, and interracial connections and tensions all emerge in honest ways. The problems I had with it is that that premise of the gunny sack and physical items being inspiration for stories was not well executed. It seemed to fall to the wayside after the first part and then suddenly reemerged at the end. The third part with Amina also seemed rushed and underdeveloped compared to the previous parts. Overall, I enjoyed this book and was happy to read a multigenerational story of a South Asian Muslim family in East Africa.
December 21, 2025
MG Vassanji is a Tanzanian Canadian of Asian descent. I have enjoyed so many of his books that took place in East Africa or India. As an American who grew up in Tanzania, only a few years later than Vassanji, I have enjoyed his description of the places I knew well and showing me how the history I lived through as a child, could be seen from an Asian perspective. That is the strength of this book: his descriptions of many of the Dar-es-Salaam neighborhoods that I have walked through myself and bringing out Tanzania's history in the lives of his characters. However, the book brings out the history of an extended Asian family from the German East African times through the Uganda War. It is often hard to follow all the characters and some of the older history. I have found his other East Africa books to be much more readable than this, which was his first book that took place there.
January 28, 2023
This is M. G. Vassanji's first novel. I had previously read "The In-Between World of Vikram Lall" As in that book, this is historically-based fiction. Here the setting is Kenya and Tanzania. I know of East Indian Canadians whose families came to Canada from East Africa - this novel gives me a feel for the forces that first lead people from India to emigrate to Africa and then, with the political upheaval when the colonial era was finished, come to Britain, Canada or United States. I like novels like that.
October 27, 2019
I really enjoyed this book. It was very descriptive and gave good coverage of early East Indian settlement in Africa
September 16, 2021
Everything I dislike about a book…character line up that is exhausting to keep up with, and a timeline that is all over the place. I just don’t have the patience for this one.
December 15, 2011
While I didn't particularly dig the device of the narrator's great-aunt's gunny sack/Scheharazade motif - I found it weirdly wanky and pretentious - I DID really enjoy hearing three generations worth of stories from East Africa from the point of view of the Indian community. This history of colonization and upheaval is something I knew next to nothing about and it was worth reading just for that.
The style of writing was a little difficult to get into, especially when you're a little wasted on vacation, but once I stopped caring about whether or not I knew who the author was talking about, I found it much easier to read and enjoy - and often, I'd figure out after a page or two which characters we were discussing.
I'm still not entirely sure what happened at the end - where the narrator was writing from and what his plan was - but again, I felt that his personal story wasn't really the point. All in all, a pretty interesting read.
The style of writing was a little difficult to get into, especially when you're a little wasted on vacation, but once I stopped caring about whether or not I knew who the author was talking about, I found it much easier to read and enjoy - and often, I'd figure out after a page or two which characters we were discussing.
I'm still not entirely sure what happened at the end - where the narrator was writing from and what his plan was - but again, I felt that his personal story wasn't really the point. All in all, a pretty interesting read.
April 12, 2013
Read this many years ago and reread it to see if it was as good as I remembered. It's definitely still one of my favorite books set in East Africa. This is the story of an extended Asian family who live in Tanzania. The story covers several generations, but mainly through the eyes of the narrator, which helps keep it coherent. Lively characters and a humorous touch kept me wondering what would happen next. There is also sadness and disappointment in the story, but it is always kept light and somewhat distant. It really does read like listening to family tales from an elder relative. Wonderfully rich and gentle.
August 29, 2013
Skillfully articulated, richly detailed story invoking the times and sensations of an Indian diaspora in eastern Africa.The potent sense of anticipation around the various escapes/retreats fleeing the changes of government, attitude and financial challenges were palpable reminders of our fragile place in culture, assimilated or not. Loved the day to day growing up in Dar, the insiders view of various families politics and the progression of the emerging independent state of Tanzania.
March 11, 2012
There are only a few writers who can successfully tie together a huge narrative spanning several generations of large families in three countries with a compelling plot and theme. Vassanji tries, but somehow misses the mark. He does, however, write beautiful setting and character sketches. It's a decent story, just a little scattered and tedious at times.
February 5, 2016
Written in the form of a memoir, Vassanji explores the trials and tribulations of the Gujarati migrants to Africa through the life of the narrator's great-grandfather and his descendants. Family scandals, love affairs and colourful characters come alive against the canvas of the First World War, the Mau-Mau rebellion and the eventual exodus of the Indian community from Africa.
July 3, 2007
A slice of life from the point of view of an East African of Indian background.
Read
July 27, 2011actually, didn't finish it. Found it kind of boring, and lost interest. Took it back to library. Just could not get "into it".
July 23, 2012
i wish i had a sack,,,,
November 21, 2015
Hard to follow and king of boring.
April 4, 2017
I gave up on this book. It was hard to keep up with all of the characters, especially as I was reading it on my e-reader and so it was inconvenient to flip back and forth.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews