Despite his status as one of Canada's most successful writers over the past 15 years, Rohinton Mistry writes very little about Canada itself. Instead, he focuses almost exclusively on India, and on the state of the Parsi community within that country. Even when he does write about Canada in his short stories or novels, he often represents his adopted country as the site of a Parsi diaspora, a place where immigrant Parsis renegotiate their identities and their relationships with one of India's most endangered communities.

The Parsi community of Bombay, defined by Zoroastrian faith and Persian heritage, would already have been in decline in 1952, when Mistry was born. The small ethnic group that had flourished under the British Raj found themselves out of favour when India gained

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Citation: Eustace, John. "Rohinton Mistry". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 July 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3131, accessed 19 March 2024.]

3131 Rohinton Mistry 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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