Ten Canadian Writers In Context

Ten years, ten authors, ten critics. The Canadian Literature Centre/Centre de littérature canadienne reaches into its ten-year archive of Brown Bag Lunch readings to sample some of the most diverse and powerful voices in contemporary Canadian literature. This anthology offers readers samples from some of Canada’s most exciting writers of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Each selection is introduced by a brief essay, serving as a point of entry into the writer’s work. From the east coast of Newfoundland to Kitamaat territory on British Columbia’s central coast, there is a story for everyone, from everywhere. True to Canada’s multilingual and multicultural heritage, these ten writers come from diverse ethnicities and backgrounds, and work in multiple languages, including English, French, and Cree. Ying Chen | essay by Julie Rodgers Lynn Coady | essay by Maïté Snauwaert Michael Crummey | essay by Jennifer Bowering Delisle Caterina Edwards | essay by Joseph Pivato Marina Endicott | essay by Daniel Laforest Lawrence Hill | essay by Winfried Siemerling Alice Major | essay by Don Perkins Eden Robinson | essay by Kit Dobson Gregory Scofield | essay by Angela Van Essen Kim Thúy | essay by Pamela V. Sing

"Ten years, ten authors, ten critics. The Canadian Literature Centre/Centre de littérature canadienne reached into its Brown Bag Lunch Reading Series to present a sampling of some of the most diverse and powerful voices in contemporary Canadian literature from Newfoundland to British Columbia. Each piece is accompanied by a concise critical essay addressing the author's writerly preoccupations and practices. The literary selections and essays will be of interest to engaged readers who want direction in analyzing these authors' work as well as to teachers and students of Canadian literature."--

"Ten years, ten authors, ten critics. The Canadian Literature Centre/Centre de littâerature canadienne reached into its Brown Bag Lunch Reading Series to present a sampling of some of the most diverse and powerful voices in contemporary Canadian literature from Newfoundland to British Columbia. Each piece is accompanied by a concise critical essay addressing the author's writerly preoccupations and practices. The literary selections and essays will be of interest to engaged readers who want direction in analyzing these authors' work as well as to teachers and students of Canadian literature."--

Context North America is a comparative study of Canadian and American literary relations that emphasizes the cultural and institutional contexts in which Canadian literature is taught and read. This volume exemplifies the question of how the literatures of Canada might aptly be studied and contextualized in the days of heightened discontinuity and increasingly ambiguous borderlines both between and within the many narratives that make up North America. Published in English.

Times change, lives change, and the terms we need to describe our literature or society or condition—what Raymond Williams calls “keywords”—change with them. Perhaps the most significant development in the quarter-century since Eli Mandel edited his anthology Contexts of Canadian Criticism has been the growing recognition that not only do different people need different terms, but the same terms have different meanings for different people and in different contexts. Nation, history, culture, art, identity—the positions we take discussing these and other issues can lead to conflict, but also hold the promise of a new sort of community. Speaking of First Nations people and their literature, Beth Brant observes that “Our connections … are like the threads of a weaving. … While the colour and beauty of each thread is unique and important, together they make a communal material of strength and durability.” New Contexts of Canadian Criticism is designed to be read, to work, in much the same manner.

Providing in-depth, original criticism on Canadian writers—including Leonard Cohen, Dave Godfrey, Robert Kroetsch, Jack Hodgins, and Robert Harlow—this series features essays by Canadian literary specialists. Each volume contains four to five essays that are unified in a general introduction.

The development of literature in Canada with an eye to its multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual nature. From modest colonial beginnings, literature in Canada has arrived at the center stage of world literature. Works by English-Canadian writers -- both established writers such as Margaret Atwood and new talents such as Yann Martel -- make regular appearances on international bestseller lists. French-Canadian literature has also found its own voice in the North American and francophone worlds. "CanLit" has likewise developed into a staple of academic interest, pursued in Canadian Studies programs in Canada and around the world. This volume draws on the expertise of scholars from Canada, Germany, Austria, and France, tracing Canadian literature from the indigenous oral tradition to thedevelopment of English-Canadian and French-Canadian literature since colonial times. Conceiving of Canada as a single but multifaceted culture, it accounts for specific characteristics of English- and French-Canadian literatures, such as the vital role of the short story in English Canada or that of the chanson in French Canada. Yet special attention is also paid to Aboriginal literature and to the pronounced transcultural, ethnically diverse character ofmuch contemporary Canadian literature, thus moving clearly beyond the traditions of the two founding nations. Contributors: Reingard M. Nischik, Eva Gruber, Iain M. Higgins, Guy Laflèche, Dorothee Scholl, Gwendolyn Davies, Tracy Ware, Fritz Peter Kirsch, Julia Breitbach, Lorraine York, Marta Dvorak, Jerry Wasserman, Ursula Mathis-Moser, Doris G. Eibl, Rolf Lohse, Sherrill Grace, Caroline Rosenthal, Martin Kuester, Nicholas Bradley, Anne Nothof, Georgiana Banita, Gilles Dupuis, and Andrea Oberhuber. Reingard M. Nischik is Professor of American Literature at the University of Constance, Germany.