Andrea Gunraj is a community outreach worker for The Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence Against Women and Children (METRAC), which promotes the rights of women, youth, and children to live free from violence and the threat of violence. Her parents emigrated from Guyana, a region whose culture and politics have infused Gunraj's writing. She and her husband live in Toronto.
The Sudden Disappearance of Seetha is Andrea's first novel. It was originally begun with generous support of a writing grant from the Toronto Arts Council and has been published by Alfred A. Knopf Canada through the New Face of Fiction program. The New Face of Fiction program has launched the careers of many well-loved writers, including Ann-Marie MacDonald, Yann Martel, Mary Lawson, and Ami McKay. Andrea's writing is represented by The Cooke Agency.
Available in bookstores in January 2009 and for order online on multiple sites, including Amazon.ca, Chapters.Indigo.ca, and Random House's website.
"Andrea Gunraj makes an extremely confident and accomplished debut with her sweeping novel of love, rivalry, family, corruption, magic and friendship. This is the start of a dazzling career.
This incredible story 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." (From http://www.randomhouse.ca/newface/gunraj.php. Copyright © 2006 Random House of Canada Limited.)
Media
The National Post's The Afterword articles by Andrea Gunraj
BookLounge.ca audio interview with Andrea Gunraj
thecommentary.ca interview with Andrea Gunraj
Experience Toronto interview with Andrea Gunraj
Oakville Beaver article
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Below are a list of excellent books which help and inform Andrea's writing.
Novels and books about novels
- The Bluest Eye (Toni Morrison)
- Barney's Version (Mordecai Richler)
- Brown Girl, Brownstones (Paule Marshall)
- The Farming of Bones (Edwidge Danticat)
- Let the Circle Be Unbroken (Mildred D. Taylor)
- Love (Toni Morrison)
- On Beauty (Zadie Smith)
- One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel García Márquez)
- Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry (Mildred D. Taylor)
- Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel (Jane Smiley)
- This Body (Tessa McWatt)
- What We All Long For (Dionne Brand)
- White Teeth (Zadie Smith)
Political and social issues
- Enter The Babylon System: Unpacking Gun Culture from Samuel Colt to 50 Cent (Rodrigo Bascuñán and Christian Pearce)
- Hegemony and Survival (Noam Chomsky)
- Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations (Clay Shirky)
- The Shock Doctrine (Naomi Klein)
- US Intervention in British Guiana: A Cold War Story (Stephen G. Rabe)
- We Real Cool (bell hooks)
- Where We Stand: Class Matters (bell hooks)