The Writers Festival is honoured to welcome back M.G. Vassanji , two-time Giller Prize winner and a GG winner for Non-fiction, with And Home Was Kariakoo: A Memoir of East Africa.

Part travelogue, part memoir, and part history-rarely-told, here is a powerful and timely portrait of a constantly evolving land. From a description of Zanzibar and its evolution to a visit to a slave-market town at Lake Tanganyika; from an encounter with a witchdoctor in an old coastal village to memories of his own childhood in the streets of Dar es Salaam and the suburbs of Nairobi, Vassanji combines brilliant prose, thoughtful and candid observation, and a lifetime of revisiting and reassessing the continent that molded him—and, as we discover when we follow the journeys that became this book—shapes him still.

This event is organized in collaboration with the Canada Council for the Arts to mark the 2015 edition of the Governor General’s Literary Awards. It’s also a celebration of M.G. Vassanji’s most recent award – the Canada Council’s Molson Prize, in recognition of his outstanding career and ongoing contributions to the cultural and intellectual life of Canada.