Luggage or Lineage? Examining Memories and Migrant Communities in M.G. Vassanji's The Gunny Sack and The Book of Secrets

M.G. Vassanji is most prolific in fictionalising the preservation of memories, including the process and paraphernalia to perform it. He fossilises the memories as diaries, books, letters, objects, bags, trunks, etc. and truncates several lives from the past. Vassanji’s narratives follow the pattern of story within story and illustrate how objects leave a trail of memories and connect generations together. What is notable is that Vassanji uses his creative energy to render an account of the immigrant community from Gujarat, India. This group of individuals who are all basically shopkeepers and traders arrive in East Africa for better prospects. However, this journey does not end here and the resettled Indian community migrates for the second time to Canada and the United States. The community travel through time and across continents holding on to memories which they carry forward through anecdotes and objects.