Born in Bombay, India, Rohinton Mistry came to Canada in 1975 after receiving his B.Sc. from the University of Bombay. While working at a bank, he continued studying and earned a B.A. from the University of Toronto in 1984. Mistry’s first book, Tales From Firozsha Baag, is a collection of short fiction that was first published in 1987. Many of the characters in his work are members of the Parsi faith community living in Bombay (Mumbai) India. Mistry lived for many years in Brampton, Ontario but now has relocated to Toronto. He is one of five recipients of the Trudeau Fellows Prize, announced April 29, 2004, that recognizes exceptional contributions to issues of public policy.
Rohinton Mistry was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters from Toronto Metropolitan University at the convocation of the Faculty of Communication & Design on June 8, 2012. YouTube video of Dr. Mistry’s interview.
Mistry is the winner of the 2012 Neustadt International Prize for Literature.
Fiction
Family Matters
Toronto: M&S, 2002.
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Publisher’s Synopsis (M&S, 2002)
Rohinton Mistry’s magnificent new novel tells a story of familial love and obligation; of political and personal corruption; of memory’s ability to keep truth alive, and the danger of memory denied. At once sweeping and intimate, comic and tragic, it is a kaleidoscopic, profoundly affecting saga.
Awards and Honours
2002 Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize–Fiction (Winner)
2002 Library Journal Best Books of the Year
2002 Man Booker Prize (Nominated)
2002 Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year
2003 CAA MOSAID Technologies Inc. Award for Fiction (Canadian Authors Association)(Winner)
2003 RUSA Notable Books (American Library Association)
2003 Torgi Literary Awards for Books in Alternative Formats (CNIB-Produced Fiction)(Winner)
2004 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (Finalist)
Fiction
A Fine Balance
Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1995.
New York : Knopf, 1997. (trade pbk.)
Publisher’s Synopsis (McClelland and Stewart, 1995)
Set in India in the mid-1970s, A Fine Balance is a richly textured novel which sweeps the reader up into its special world. Large in scope, the narrative focuses on four unlikely people who come together in a flat in the city soon after the government declares a “State of Internal Emergency.” Through days of bleakness and hope, their lives become entwined in circumstances no one could have foreseen.
Awards and Honours
1995 Giller Prize (Winner)
1996 Commonwealth Book Prize–Best Book (Winner)
1996 Man Booker Prize (Nominated)
1996 Los Angeles Times Book Prize-Fiction (Winner)
1996 The Royal Society of Literature’s Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize (Winner)
1997 Irish Times International Fiction Prize (Nominated)
1997 RUSA Notable Book (American Library Association)
1998 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (Nominated)
2001 Oprah’s Book Club
Fiction
Such a Long Journey
Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1991.
Toronto: M&S, 1993. (New Canadian Library)
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Toronto: M&S, 1999. (movie tie-in)
Publisher’s Synopsis (M&S, 1993)
In Rohinton Mistry’s first novel Such a Long Journey, Gustad Noble, a dedicated and somewhat innocent bank clerk, finds his familial life and his professional life unravelling as his son rejects filial piety, his best friend involves him in political intrigue, and his own rationality and morality confront a world of change.
Set in Bombay with its turbulent national politics complemented by worse tensions on the international scene, the novel teems with the life of its city and the many characters who populate Gustad Noble’s world.
Awards and Honours
1991 Governor-General’s Literary Awards–English–Fiction (Winner)
1991 Booker Prize (Nominated)
1991 Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award (formerly Smith Books/Books in Canada) (Winner)
1992 Commonwealth Book Prize–Best Book (Winner)
Fiction
Tales From Firozsha Baag
Toronto: Emblem Editions, 2002
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Published in the U.S.A. under title: Swimming Lessons and Other Stories From Firozsha Baag.
Publisher’s Synopsis (Penguin Books Canada, 1987)
Here is a wonderful introduction to the residents of Firozsha Baag, an apartment complex in Bombay. We enter the daily routine and rhythm of their lives — the visits of the egg man, biscuit walla and fishwalla; we hear the rag man’s song.
Awards and Honours
1987 Governor General’s Literary Awards–English Fiction (Nominated)
Anthology
Writing Life
Mistry, Rohinton. “Welcome to Acada.” In Writing Life: Celebrated Canadian and International Authors on Writing and Life, edited by Constance Rooke. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2006, 266-276.
Anthology (Political Satire)
Mistry, Rohinton. “From Plus-fours to Minus-fours.” In The Ark in the Garden: Fables for Our Time, Collected by Alberto Manguel. Toronto: Macfarlane Walter & Ross, 1998, [40]-51.
Anthology (Portrait)
“Rohinton Mistry.” In Tata, Sam. Portraits of Canadian Writers, edited by John Metcalf. Erin, Ont.: Porcupine’s Quill, 1991, 30-[31].
Selected Criticism and Interpretation
Batra, Jagdish. “Cultural Ethos and Ethnic Values: A Study of Rohinton Mistry.” In Canadian Studies Today: Responses from the Asia-Pacific, ed. by Stewart Gill, R.K. Dhawan, [159]-169. Delhi: Prestige, 2009.
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Batra, Jagdish. Rohinton Mistry: Identity, Values and Other Sociological Concerns. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2008.
Bharucha, Nilufer E. Rohinton Mistry: Ethnic Enclosures and Transcultural Spaces. Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 2003.
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Bhatia, Suman. “Oppression and Resistance in Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance.” In The Indian Diasporic Writing (Theory and Discourse), ed. Satyavir S. Phulia and Hemant Verma. New Delhi: Shri Sai Printographers, 2009, 108-115.
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Collin, Sarah Christine. “Matters of Multiculturalism: Approaching a Canadian Politics of Belonging.” M.A. diss., University of Guelph, 1996.
Available from Proquest Dissertations and Theses
Dangwal, Surekha. “Image of India in Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance and Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children: A Comparative Study Towards Diasporic Consciousness.” In Contemporary Commonwealth Literature, ed. R.K. Dhawan. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2006.
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Dodiya, Jaydipsinh, ed. The Fiction of Rohinton Mistry: Critical Studies. London: Sangam Books, 1998.
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Dodiya, Jaydipsinh K., ed. The Novels of Rohinton Mistry: Critical Studies. New Delhi: Sarup and Sons, 2004.
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Gardner, Barbara J. “Speaking Voices in Postcolonial Indian Novels from Orientalism to Outsourcing.” Ph.D. diss., Georgia State University, 2012.
Available from Proquest Dissertations and Theses
Genetsch, Martin. The Texture of Identity: The Fiction of MG Vassanji, Neil Bissoondath, and Rohinton Mistry. Toronto: TSAR, 2008.
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Goyal, Sanka. “Different Attitudes Towards West: A Study of Mistry and Lahiri.” In The Indian Diasporic Writing (Theory and Discourse), ed. Satyavir S. Phulia and Hemant Verma. New Delhi: Shri Sai Printographers, 2009, 116-124.
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Hoops, Janet Lynn. “Women in Rohinton Mistry’s Fiction.” M.A. diss., The University of New Brunswick, 1998.
Available from Proquest Dissertations and Theses
Kain, Geoffrey. “The Enigma of Departure: The Dynamics of Cultural Ambiguity in Rohinton Mistry’s Swimming Lessons and Other Stories from Firozsha Baag.” In Ideas of Home: Literature of Asian Migration. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1997, 63-74.
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Kahkeshan, Sanober. “Diasporal Reflection in the Works of Rohinton Mistry.” In Literature of Diaspora: Cultural Dislocation, ed. Shaikh Samad. New Delhi: Creative Books, 2009, 98-103.
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Kandiuk, Mary. “Rohinton Mistry.” In Caribbean and South Asian Writers in Canada: A Bibliography of Their Works and of English-language Criticism. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2007, 78-93.
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Kasibhatla, Jaya Nandita. “Constituting the Exception: Law, Literature and the State of Emergency in Postcolonial India.” Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 2005.
Available from Proquest Dissertations and Theses
Kyser, Kristina. “Reading Canada Biblically: A Study of Biblical Allusion and the Construction of Nation in Contemporary Canadian Writing.” Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, 2004.
Available from Proquest Dissertations and Theses
Leckie, Barbara. “Rohinton Mistry and His Works.” In Canadian Writers and Their Works. Fiction Series. Vol. 11, ed. Robert Lecker, Jack David and Ellen Quigley, 213-266. Toronto: ECW Press, 1996.
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Malcolm, Carolyn Patricia. “Settlement Fictions: Global South Literature and the Postcolonial Urban Imaginary.” Ph.D. diss., Rutgers the State University of New Jersey – New Brunswick, 2012.
Available from Proquest Dissertations and Theses
Malieckal, Bindu. “Rohinton Mistry.” In Asian American Novelists: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook, ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson, [219]-228. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000.
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Morey, Peter. “Post-colonial Destinations: Spatial Re(con)figurings in Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan and Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance.” Chap. in Fictions of India: Narrative and Power. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000.
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Morey, Peter. Rohinton Mistry. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004.
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Mukherjee, Arun. “Narrating India: Rohinton Mistry’s ‘Such a Long Journey’.” In Oppositional Aesthetics: Readings from a Hyphenated Space. Toronto: TSAR, 1994, 144-151.
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Nagappan, Ramu. “Speaking Havoc: Social Suffering and the South Asian Imagination, 1947-1997.” Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2000.
Available from Proquest Dissertations and Theses
Parks, Vanessa. “Becoming Canadian: Narrating National Identity Through the History of Elsewhere.” M.A. diss., University of Guelph, 2008.
Available from Proquest Dissertations and Theses
Patil, Umesh Gulabrao. “Rohinton Mistry: A Diaspora Writer.” In Indian Diasporic Literature: Text, Context and Interpretation, ed. Shalini Dube, 36-43. New Delhi: Shree Publishers, 2009.
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Ramaswamy, S. “The Mystery of Mistry as Tiresias: A Study of “Lend me Your Light”.” In his Commentaries on Canadian Literature. New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2006, 124-132.
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Roberts, Gillian. “The’Bombay-born, Canadian-based Banker’: Rohinton Mistry’s Hospitality at the Threshold.” Chap. in her Prizing Literature: The Celebration and Circulation of National Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011, 138-180.
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Rushton, Beth. “Rohinton Mistry’s Family Matters: A Reading About Death.” In Canadian Studies Today: Responses from the Asia-Pacific, ed. by Stewart Gill, R.K. Dhawan, [152]-158. Delhi: Prestige, 2009.
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Salaye, Narvadha. “Marginalisation and the Construction of South-Asian Identity in Novels by Rohinton Mistry, Shyam Selvadurai and Moyez Vassanji.” M.A. diss., Université de Sherbrooke, 2002.
Available from Proquest Dissertations and Theses
Selvam, P. Humanism in the Novels of Rohinton Mistry. New Delhi: Creative Books, 2009.
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Shah, Nila. “Re-narrating History of a Community and Country: Rohinton Mistry’s Such a Long Journey and A Fine Balance.” Chap. in Novel as History. New Delhi: Creative Books, 2003, 102-120.
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Singh, Bhan. “Rohinton Mistry’s Such A Long Journey: The Parsi Feelings.” In The Indian Diasporic Writing (Theory and Discourse), ed. Satyavir S. Phulia and Hemant Verma. New Delhi: Shri Sai Printographers, 2009, 101-107.
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Smyrl, Shannon Lorene. “”In all Their Diversity”: Ethnicity and the Anxiety of Nation-building in English-Canadian Literary Studies at the End of the Millennium.” Ph.D. diss., Queen’s University at Kingston, 2001.
Available from Proquest Dissertations and Theses
Sukumari, B. “Gendered Spaces in Desi and Diasporic Fiction: Arundhati Roy and Rohinton Minstry.” In The Expatriate Indian Writing in English. Vol. 2, ed. T. Vinoda and P. Shailaja, 2006, 224-238.
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Tokaryk, J. Tyler. “”Development is Like a Giraffe”: Competing Narratives of Development Assistance From John Maynard Keynes to Rohinton Mistry.” Ph.D. diss., The University of Western Ontario, 2001.
Available from Proquest Dissertations and Theses
Weagel, Deborah. “The Metaphor of the Quilt in Contemporary Asian Indian and American Indian Literature.” Ph.D. diss., The University of New Mexico, 2006.
Available from Proquest Dissertations and Theses
Links
Reading Guide for A Fine Balance
Reading Guide for Family Matters
Mistry’s Canadian publisher McClelland and Stewart Ltd. has information about his works
Profile by Linda Richards from January Magazine