No New Land Paperback - 1997

From the jacket flap

Nurdin Lalani and his family, Asian immigrants from Africa, have come to the Toronto suburb of Don Mills only to find that the old world and its values pursue them. A genial orderly at a downtown hospital, he has been accused of sexually assaulting a girl. Although he is innocent, traditional propriety prompts him to question the purity of his own thoughts. Ultimately, his friendship with the enlightened Sushila offers him an alluring freedom from a past that haunts him, a marriage that has become routine, and from the trials of coping with teenage children. Introducing us to a cast of vividly drawn characters within this immigrant community, Vassanji is a keen observer of lives caught between one world and another.

Media reviews

   • "A novel of considerable charm and intelligence, informed by a delightful sense of irony." -- Mordecai Richler


   • "Vassanji probes beneath the surface to create a compelling and poignant portrait of human displacement." -- Ottawa Citizen


   • "It is part of Vassanji's great talent to demonstrate that the minor changes -- unexpected love, sex, accusations -- in the life of a very modest man are, in fact, transformations of history." -- Globe and Mail


   • "Vassanji, in charting a tiny part of the Canadian reality, offers up certain truths, thought-provoking, disturbing, but ultimately, and in a small way, hopeful." -- Saturday Night