Essays & Lectures

  1. "The New (Asian) African: Politics and Creativity in the 1960s." East African Literary and Cultural Studies. Vol 1, nos 1-2. 2014
  2. "The Trouble with 'KONY 2012.'" Maclean's March 15, 2012.
  3. "Ginanic Travails, Conflicted Knowledge." Summerhill, IIAS Review. XVII, No 1. 2011.
  4. "Foreword." My Experiments With Truth, by MK Gandhi. Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2011.
  5. “Lamenting Kilimanjaro.” The Toronto Star, March 2008.
  6. “On the Crisis in Kenya.” Maclean’s. January 2008.
  7. “Introduction.” Fire on the Mountain, by Anita Desai. New Delhi: Random House, 2008.
  8. "If Only It Happened: On the Crisis in Kenya." Macleans
  9. “Introduction.” The Street, by Mordecai Richler. Toronto: Penguin, 2007.
  10. “I Was a City Boy, a Soft Asian.” New Internationalist, December 2006.
  11. “Introduction.” The Deptford Trilogy, by Robertson Davies. Toronto: Penguin, 2006.
  12. “Am I a Canadian Writer?” Editorial, Canadian Literature 190, Autumn 2006.
  13. "Canada and Me: Finding Ourselves." in Passages. Toronto: Doubleday 2002.
  14. "Life at the Margins, in the Thick of Multiplicity.'' In Between the Lines, ed. Deepika Bahri. Temple University Press, 1997.
  15. "Community as Fictional Character.'' Studies in Humanities and Social Science, 1994 (publication of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study).
  16. "The Dark Side of Home,'' Indian Express, February 1993.
  17. "First Impressions.'' En Route (Air Canada magazine) July 1992.
  18. "Ethnic Identity Survives First Generation.'' Toronto Star July 30, 1991.
  19. "On Voice Appropriation.'' Books in Canada Spring 1991.
  20. "Is There a South Asian Canadian Literature?'' Toronto South Asian Review Vol 6, No 3, Spring 1988.
  21. "Introduction.'' A Meeting of Streams: South Asian Canadian Literature. ed. M G Vassanji (Toronto: Tsar, 1985).
  22. "Canadian Punjabi Literature." Toronto South Asian Review Vol 2, No 1, Spring 1983.


Selected lectures

  1. "The Novelist and the Phantom of History." Keynote address, The Canada Prizes, hosted by Federation for the Humanities and the Social Sciences. April 29, 2015.
  2. “The New (Asian) African: Politics and Creativity in the 1960s.” Lecture (2013-2014) in several versions at the University of Indiana, Bloomington; School of Oriental and African Studies (London); Kenyatta University (Nairobi); the University of Nairobi.
  3. “Gandhi: A Personal Discovery.” (2013) Gandhi Society, Calgary, Alberta.
  4. “Physics, Fiction, and Song: On the Influence of Mystical Folk Songs.” (2013) University of Calgary.
  5. “A Place Called In-between, in the Country of Nowhere.” (2012) The Arthur Ravenscroft Memorial Lecture, Leeds University, England.
  6. "What Is the Commonwealth?" Keynote address, Commonwealth Seminar during the Commonwealth Games, New Delhi, October 2010.
  7. “So As Not to Die." Delivered at McGill University, 2010.
  8. “Writing from the Places In-between." Smuts Lecture, University of Cambridge. 2010.
  9. "A Novelist's Adventures in Nonfiction." Delivered at Humber College, Summer 2010.
  10. "Making Sense of a Small Identity." Delivered at Conference on Gujarat. SOAS, Univ. of London. 2010.
  11. "Discovering Canada." Convocation Address, University of Toronto, May 2009.
  12. "Observations of a Writer at Large." Address, University of Puerto Rico.
  13. "How Do You Write the City." International Lawrence Durrell Conference, Ottawa, June 2002.

M G Vassanji