Andrea Gunraj’s parents immigrated to Canada from Guyana. She is a novelist and essayist living in Toronto, Ontario.
Fiction
The Lost Sister
Halifax: Vagrant Press/Nimbus Publishing, 2019.
PS8613.U58 L67 2019
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Alisha and Diana are young sisters living at Jane and Finch, a Toronto suburb full of immigrants trying to build new lives in North America. Diana, the eldest, is the light of the little family, the one Alisha longs to emulate more than anyone else. But when Diana doesn’t come home one night and her body is discovered in the woods, Alisha becomes haunted. She thinks she knows who did it, but can’t tell anyone about it.
Unable to handle the loss of their daughter and unaware of Alisha’s secret guilt, the family unravels. It’s only through an unusual friendship with Paula, an older woman who volunteers at her school, that Alisha finds reprieve. Once an orphan in the Nova Scotia Home for Coloured Children and estranged from her own sister, Paula helps Alisha understand that the chance for redemption and peace only comes with facing difficult truths.
Fiction
The Sudden Disappearance of Seetha
Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2009.
PS8613 .U58 S93 2009
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
This [debut novel] begins in the first minutes following a mother’s discovery that her three-year-old daughter has been abducted. These early pages launch us into the mother’s story. Headstrong, defiant, and troubled, Neela navigates a bitter relationship with her genius brother, Navi, and her grandmother, and eventually escapes her stultifying village with the bad seed of the town to a new resort development in the heart of the Caribbean country’s rainforest. Jaroon soon comes to embody the corruption that festers in this alienating place. When Neela, now the young mother of Jaroon’s child, grows afraid of his unpredictable brutality and leaves him, she sets into motion a terrifying chain of events that changes all those who know them.
Non-fiction
Go-Between Girl: My Indentured Roots as Reclaimed Present
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2026.
Publisher’s Synopsis (From the Penguin Random House Canada website)
Andrea Gunraj delves into the under-told legacy of indentured labour and its lasting impacts on descendants across diasporas, from the Caribbean and Latin America to Canada, the United States, and beyond. She captures the complexities of belonging and the challenges of navigating dichotomies. Through the concept of “go-betweenness,” Gunraj illustrates her path from the intersections of race, class, and identity to a broader understanding of colonial histories.
A gripping read that weaves memoir with history and cultural criticism, Go-Between Girl is both accessible and profound, intimate and political. Gunraj invites readers to reconsider their narratives about work, love, and heritage. Her essays are a touching testament to the enduring quest for justice, offering a powerful contribution to contemporary conversations on race, feminism, and the unfinished legacies of colonialism.
Links
Andrea Gunraj personal website
Publisher Random House of Canada
Audio Interview with Michael Schellenberg from the BookLounge.ca website