{"id":6320,"date":"2001-06-01T11:03:22","date_gmt":"2001-06-01T15:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=6320"},"modified":"2015-08-17T10:38:53","modified_gmt":"2015-08-17T14:38:53","slug":"amriika-by-m-g-vassanji","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/amriika-by-m-g-vassanji\/","title":{"rendered":"Amriika by M.G. Vassanji [in aMagazine: Inside Asian America]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2001\/06\/Amriika.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-32656\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2001\/06\/Amriika.jpg\" alt=\"Amriika\" width=\"305\" height=\"475\" \/><\/a>The premise of this disappointing novel revolves around Ramji, who, by the time he arrives in the U.S. in 1968 from his home in Dar es Salaam, East Africa (now Tanzania), he is already doubly displaced. As the novel unfolds, it, too, struggles with a dual identi\u00adty that is never resolved. On the one hand, the story is about a young foreign student who becomes politically aware in college, then marries and settles for suburbia, goes through a mid-life crisis, finds his soulmate in a younger woman and gives up everything to live his life of free love. On the other, the work is a political treatise on taking action, pursuing your beliefs and not betraying your fellow warriors. And never the twain shall meet. While the exposure to the Indian diaspora was interesting \u2013\u00a0I had no prior knowledge of the East African Indian community\u2013\u00a0it was, alas, not enough to make <em>Amriika <\/em>a literary success.<\/p>\n<p>FYI &#8230; Vassanji&#8217;s later <em><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/2004\/10\/28\/the-in-between-world-of-vikram-lall-by-m-g-vassanji\/\">The In-Between Life of Vikram Lall<\/a><\/em> (2004)\u00a0is actually a far superior choice.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Review<\/strong>: <a href=\"http:\/\/bookdragonreviews.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/08\/amagazine-2001-0607-south-asian-writers.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">&#8220;Bolo! Bolo! Tell Me! South Asian writers move into the literary spotlight,&#8221; <strong>a<\/strong><em>Magazine: Inside Asian America<\/em>, June\/July 2001<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Tidbit<\/strong>: Vassanji was a guest at <a href=\"http:\/\/apanews.si.edu\/2005\/10\/01\/saltaf-2005-south-asian-literary-and-theater-arts-festival\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">SALTAF 2005<\/a> (South Asian Literary and Theater Arts Festival), a much-anticipated, highly-attended annual fall event sponsored by the Smithsonian APA Program and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.netsap.org\/netsapdc\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span style=\"font-weight: normal\">NetSAP-DC<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2001<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6255\" title=\"Amriika\" src=\"http:\/\/bookdragonreviews.wordpress.com\/files\/2009\/08\/amriika.jpg\" alt=\"Amriika\" width=\"128\" height=\"193\" \/>The premise of this disappointing novel revolves around Ramji, who, by the time he arrives in the U.S. in 1968 from his home in Dar es Salaam, East Africa (now Tanzania), he is already doubly displaced. As the novel unfolds, it, too, struggles with a dual identi\u00adty that is never resolved. On the one hand, the story is about a young foreign student who becomes politically aware in college, then marries and settles for suburbia, goes through a mid-life crisis, finds his soulmate in a younger woman and gives up everything to live his life of free love. On the other, the work is a political treatise on taking action, pursuing your beliefs and not betraying your fellow warriors. And never the twain shall meet. While the exposure to the Indian diaspora was interesting \u2013 I had no prior knowledge of the East African Indian community\u2013 it was, alas, not enough to make <em>Amriika <\/em>a literary success.<\/p>\n<p>FYI &#8230; Vassanji&#8217;s later <em><a href=\"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/2004\/10\/28\/the-in-between-world-of-vikram-lall-by-m-g-vassanji\/\" target=\"_blank\">The In-Between Life of Vikram Lall<\/a><\/em> (2004) is actually a far superior choice.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Review<\/strong>: <a href=\"http:\/\/bookdragonreviews.wordpress.com\/files\/2009\/08\/amagazine-2001-0607-south-asian-writers.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Bolo! Bolo! Tell Me! South Asian writers move into the literary spotlight,&#8221; <strong>a<\/strong><em>Magazine: Inside Asian America<\/em>, June\/July 2001<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2001<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9,6,531,53,6535,18],"tags":[4822,4890,6608,22,341,10,11,25,13,532,28,29],"class_list":["post-6320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-canadian-asian-pacific-american","category-fiction","category-indian-african","category-indian-american","category-repost","category-south-asian-american","tag-amagazine-inside-asian-america","tag-amriika","tag-bookdragon","tag-civil-rights","tag-colonialism","tag-family","tag-friendship","tag-immigration","tag-love","tag-m-g-vassanji","tag-politics","tag-race-racism"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Amriika by M.G. Vassanji [in aMagazine: Inside Asian America] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/amriika-by-m-g-vassanji\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Amriika by M.G. Vassanji [in aMagazine: Inside Asian America] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The premise of this disappointing novel revolves around Ramji, who, by the time he arrives in the U.S. in 1968 from his home in Dar es Salaam, East Africa (now Tanzania), he is already doubly displaced. As the novel unfolds, it, too, struggles with a dual identi\u00adty that is never resolved. On the one hand, the story is about a young foreign student who becomes politically aware in college, then marries and settles for suburbia, goes through a mid-life crisis, finds his soulmate in a younger woman and gives up everything to live his life of free love. On the other, the work is a political treatise on taking action, pursuing your beliefs and not betraying your fellow warriors. And never the twain shall meet. While the exposure to the Indian diaspora was interesting \u2013 I had no prior knowledge of the East African Indian community\u2013 it was, alas, not enough to make Amriika a literary success.  FYI ... Vassanji&#039;s later The In-Between Life of Vikram Lall (2004) is actually a far superior choice.  Review: &quot;Bolo! Bolo! Tell Me! South Asian writers move into the literary spotlight,&quot; aMagazine: Inside Asian America, June\/July 2001  Readers: Adult  Published: 2001\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/amriika-by-m-g-vassanji\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2001-06-01T15:03:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-08-17T14:38:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2001\/06\/Amriika.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"305\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"475\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Amriika by M.G. 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On the one hand, the story is about a young foreign student who becomes politically aware in college, then marries and settles for suburbia, goes through a mid-life crisis, finds his soulmate in a younger woman and gives up everything to live his life of free love. On the other, the work is a political treatise on taking action, pursuing your beliefs and not betraying your fellow warriors. And never the twain shall meet. While the exposure to the Indian diaspora was interesting \u2013 I had no prior knowledge of the East African Indian community\u2013 it was, alas, not enough to make Amriika a literary success.  FYI ... Vassanji's later The In-Between Life of Vikram Lall (2004) is actually a far superior choice.  Review: \"Bolo! Bolo! Tell Me! South Asian writers move into the literary spotlight,\" aMagazine: Inside Asian America, June\/July 2001  Readers: Adult  Published: 2001","og_url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/amriika-by-m-g-vassanji\/","og_site_name":"BookDragon","article_published_time":"2001-06-01T15:03:22+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-08-17T14:38:53+00:00","og_image":[{"width":305,"height":475,"url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2001\/06\/Amriika.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@SmithsonianAPA","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/amriika-by-m-g-vassanji\/","url":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/amriika-by-m-g-vassanji\/","name":"Amriika by M.G. 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