[5] He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania, where he specialised in nuclear physics, before moving to Canada as a postdoctoral fellow in 1978.

[citation needed] In 1989, after the publication of his first novel, The Gunny Sack,[6][7] Vassanji was invited to spend a season at the International Writing Program of the University of Iowa.

That year, he also won the Harbourfront Festival Prize in recognition of his "achievement in and contribution to the world of letters," and was one of twelve Canadians chosen for Maclean's Magazine's Honour Roll.

[10][11][12] Mainly, his characters are the Asians of East Africa (Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania), whose historical record, as of that region as a whole, is sparse.

His third novel, The Book of Secrets starts with the journal of a colonial administrator at the border between German and British East Africa and brings to his creation memories and archival material.

In the dystopic novel Nostalgia Vassanji tackles the topic of assimilation, in which characters can have their memories erased and replaced by new ones in order to be better integrated.

[16] Vassanji's narratives follow the personal histories of his main characters; the historical perspective provided often leaves mysteries unsolved.

The colonial history of Kenya and Tanzania serves as the backdrop for much of his work;[17] in the Assassin's Song, however, he tackles Indian folk culture and myths.