the cambridge companion to canadian...

The Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature

This book offers a comprehensive and lively introduction to major writers,genres, and topics in Canadian literature. Addressing traditional assumptionsand current issues, contributors pay attention to the social, political, and eco-nomic developments that have informed literary events. Broad surveys of fic-tion, drama, and poetry are complemented by chapters on Aboriginal writing,autobiography, literary criticism, writing by women, and the emergence ofurban writing in a country historically defined by its regions. Also discussed aregenres that have a special place in Canadian literature, such as nature-writing,exploration- and travel-writing, and short fiction. Although the emphasis is onliterature in English, a substantial chapter on francophone writing is included.

Eva-Marie Kroller is Professor at the Department of English, University ofBritish Columbia, Vancouver. Her books include Canadian Travellers inEurope (1987), George Bowering: Bright Circles of Colour (1992), the onlybook on Canada’s first poet laureate currently available, and Pacific Encoun-ters: The Production of Self and Other (coedited, 1997).

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THE CAMBRIDGE

COMPANION TO

CANADIANLITERATURE

EDITED BY

EVA-MARIE KROLLERUniversity of British Columbia, Vancouver






University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom

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It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

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© Cambridge University Press 2004

Th is publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written

permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2004Reprinted 2005

Dedicated to the memory of Gabriele Helms

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Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data

Th e Cambridge Companion to Canadian literature / edited by Eva-Marie Kröller.p. cm. – (Cambridge companions to literature)

Includes bibliographical references and index.isbn 0 521 81441 3 – isbn 0 521 89131 0 (pbk.)

1. Canadian literature – History and criticism – Handbooks, manuals, etc. i. Kröller,Eva-Marie. ii. Series.pr9184.3.c34 2003

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CONTENTS

List of plates page viiList of maps viiiNotes on contributors ixAcknowledgments xiiNote on poetry xiiiChronology xv

Introduction 1eva-marie kroller

1 Aboriginal writing 22penny van toorn

2 Francophone writing 49e. d. blodgett

3 Exploration and travel 70eva-marie kroller

4 Nature-writing 94christoph irmscher

5 Drama 115ric knowles

6 Poetry 135david staines

7 Fiction 155marta dvorak

v






contents

8 Short fiction 177robert thacker

9 Writing by women 194coral ann howells

10 Life writing 216susanna egan and gabriele helms

11 Regionalism and urbanism 241janice fiamengo

12 Canadian literary criticism and the idea ofa national literature 263magdalene redekop

Further reading 276Index 284

vi






PLATES

1 Samuel Hearne, “A Winter View in the Athapuscow Lake,”from Hearne, Journey from Prince of Wales’s Fort (1795).Courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University. page 97

2 “A Camp on the Boundary Line,” frontispiece to vol. II ofJohn Keast Lord, The Naturalist in Vancouver Island andBritish Columbia (1866). Author’s collection. Photograph:Tim Ford. 99

3 Agnes Fitzgibbon, Plate VI, facing p. 48, in Catharine ParrTraill, Canadian Wild Flowers (1868). Courtesy of theCanadian Museum of Nature. Photograph: Anne Botman. 102

4 From Delos White Beadle, Canadian Fruit, Flower, andKitchen Gardener (1872). Author’s collection. Photograph:Tim Ford. 104

5 “E. E. T.” (Ernest E. Thompson [Seton]), Wood Ducks, fromThomas McIlwraith, Birds of Ontario, 2nd edn. (1894).Author’s collection. Photograph: Tim Ford. 107

6 Illustration by Alistair Anderson, from River of the AngryMoon by Mark Hume with Harvey Thommasen. CopyrightC© 1998 by Mark Hume. Published in Canada by GreystoneBooks, a division of Douglas and McIntyre. Reprinted bypermission of the publisher. 112

vii






MAPS

1 Canada page xxx

2 Tribal distributions in and near Canada at time of contact 23

viii






NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

e. d. blodgett is University Professor Emeritus of Comparative Litera-ture at the University of Alberta. He has published widely on comparativeCanadian literature. He received the 1996 Governor-General’s Award andthe 1997 Canadian Authors’ Association Award for Apostrophes, a volumeof poetry. A renga with Jacques Brault entitled Transfiguration (1998) alsoreceived the Governor-General’s Award. Recent publications include Five-Part Invention: A History of Literary History in Canada (2003).

marta dvorak is a professor of Canadian andCommonwealth literaturesat the Sorbonne Nouvelle. She is the author of Ernest Buckler: Rediscoveryand Reassessment (2001) and has edited numerous books on Canadian writ-ing and culture; three of her articles have received international awards. Abook on Nancy Huston is forthcoming. She is currently an associate editorof the International Journal of Canadian Studies.

susanna egan teaches in the Department of English at the Universityof British Columbia, as did the late gabriele helms. Egan and Helmscollaborated as editors on the special issue of biography, “Autobiographyand Changing Identities” (2001) and on the special issue ofCanadian Litera-ture, “Auto/biography” (2002). Egan’s books include Mirror Talk: Genresof Crisis in Contemporary Autobiography (1999) and Helms was the authorof Challenging Canada: Dialogism and Narrative Techniques in CanadianNovels (2003).

janice fiamengo , after spending a number of years at the Universityof Saskatchewan, teaches in the Department of English at the University ofOttawa. She has broad interests in Canadian literature and feminist the-ory, with publications on Margaret Atwood, Sara Jeannette Duncan,Linda Svendsen, and Nellie McClung. Recently published work on L. M.Montgomery examines the politics of the regional landscape. Fiamengo is

ix






notes on contributors

completing a book on early Canadian women’s strategies of rhetoric andself-presentation.

coral ann howells is a professor of English and Canadian Literatureat the University of Reading. She has been associate editor of the Inter-national Journal of Canadian Studies. Her publications include Private andFictional Worlds: Canadian Women Novelists of the 1970s and 80s (1987),Margaret Atwood (1996, Margaret Atwood Society Best Book Award),AliceMunro (1998), and Contemporary Canadian Women’s Fiction: RefiguringIdentities (2003).

christoph irmscher teaches in the Department of English at the Uni-versity of Maryland Baltimore County. He is the author of The Poetics ofNatural History (1999; 1999 Language and Literature Award of the Asso-ciation of American Publishers, Scholarly Division; 2000 American Stud-ies Network Prize) and the editor of John James Audobon, Writings andDrawings (1999). His work on early Canadian nature-writing includes anessay on Philip Henry Gosse’s The Canadian Naturalist.

ric knowles teaches drama at the University of Guelph. He is the editorof Modern Drama, an editor of the Canadian Theatre Review, and authorof The Theatre of Form and the Production of Meaning: ContemporaryCanadian Dramaturgy (1999, 2001 Ann Saddlemyer Prize for OutstandingBook on Canadian Drama and Theatre).

eva-marie kroller teaches in the Department of English and the Pro-gramme in Comparative Literature at the University of British Columbia.She was the editor of Canadian Literature from 1995 to 2003. Her publica-tions include Canadian Travellers in Europe, 1851–1900 (1987), GeorgeBowering: Bright Circles of Colour (1992), and the coedited PacificEncounters: The Production of Self and Other (1997).

magdalene redekop teaches at Victoria College, University of Toronto.She is the author ofMothers and Other Clowns: The Stories of Alice Munro(1992) and is currently completing a book onMennonite writing in Canada,as well as beginning a book on comedy in Canadian literature.

david staines is Professor of English at the University of Ottawa. Heis the editor of the Journal of Canadian Poetry and of the New CanadianLibrary. His books include The Forty-Ninth and Other Parallels: Contem-porary Canadian Perspectives (1986), Beyond the Provinces: LiteraryCanada at Century’s End (1995), Northrop Frye on Canada (with JeanO’Grady, 2003) andMarshall McLuhan: Understanding Me (with Stephanie

x






notes on contributors

McLuhan, 2003). In 1998, he received the Lorne Pierce Medal for distin-guished service to Canadian literature from the Royal Society of Canada.

robert thacker is Professor of Canadian Studies and English at St.Lawrence University. He is the author of The Great Prairie Fact andLiterary Imagination (1989) and was the Director of Canadian Studies at St.Lawrence as well as the editor of the American Review of Canadian Studies.He edited The Rest of the Story: Critical Essays on Alice Munro (1999) andis working on a critical biography of Munro.

penny van toorn is a lecturer in Australian Literature and AustralianStudies at the University of Sydney. She is the author of Rudy Wiebe and theHistoricity of the Word (1995), and coeditor of Speaking Positions: Abo-riginality, Gender and Ethnicity in Australian Cultural Studies (1995) andStories without End (2002). She has published extensively on postcolonialliteratures and theory, focusing particularly on writings by and about Indige-nous peoples of Australia and Canada.

xi






ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks to the contributors to this volume for their professionalism andcollegiality, to Donna Chin, Jennifer Yong, and Russell Aquino for experttechnical assistance and research, to Susan Fisher, Alain-Michel Rocheleau,Allan Smith, Kevin McNeilly, and Glenn Deer for editorial and bibliograph-ical advice, to Caroline Howlett for meticulous copy-editing, and to SarahStanton at Cambridge University Press for her efficiency and wisdom.

Margaret Atwood, “Progressive Insanities of a Pioneer,” reprinted by permis-sion of the author. George Bowering, “For WCW,” reprinted by permissionof the author. Robert Kroetsch, “Stone Hammer Poem,” reprinted by per-mission of the author. Al Purdy, “The CountryNorth of Belleville,” reprintedby permission of Harbour Publishing.

xii






NOTE ON POETRY

Quotations in the text from the following poems are drawn from the sourcesindicated:

Atwood,Margaret. “ABus along St Clair: December.”Atwood,The Journalsof Susanna Moodie. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1970. pp. 60–1.

—. “Progressive Insanities of a Pioneer.” Atwood, The Animals in ThatCountry. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1968. pp. 36–9.

Birney, Earle. “Bushed” (1951). The Collected Poems. Vol. I. Toronto:McClelland and Stewart, 1975. p. 160.

Bowering, George. “For WCW” (1965). Touch: Selected Poems 1960–1970.Toronto/Montreal: McClelland and Stewart, 1971. pp. 24–7.

Klein, A. M. “Soiree of Velvel Kleinburger” (1928/31). Complete Poems.Part I: Original Poems, 1926–1934. Ed. Zailig Pollock. Toronto: Univer-sity of Toronto Press, 1990. pp. 183–6.

Kroetsch, Robert. “Seed Catalogue.” Completed Field Notes: The LongPoems of Robert Kroetsch. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1989.pp. 32–51.

—. “Stone Hammer Poem.” The Stone Hammer Poems 1960–1975.Lantzville, British Columbia: Oolichan Books, 1975. p. 54.

Page, P. K. “As Ten, as Twenty.”TheHidden Room: Collected Poems. Vol. II.Erin: Porcupine’s Quill, 1997. p. 23.

Pratt, E. J. “The Titanic” (1935). Complete Poems. Part 1. Ed. Sandra DjwaandR.G.Moyles. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989. pp. 302–38.

Purdy, Al. “The Country North of Belleville” (1965). Beyond Remembering:The Collected Poems of Al Purdy. Selected and edited by Al Purdy andSam Solecki. Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2000. pp. 79–81.

Roberts, Charles G. D. “The Potato Harvest” (1886). The Collected Poemsof Sir Charles G. D. Roberts. Ed. Desmond Pacey. Wolfville: WombatPress, 1985. p. 91.

xiii






note on poetry

Scott, F. R. “The Canadian Authors Meet” (1936). The Collected Poems ofF. R. Scott. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1981. p. 248.

Smith, A. J. M. “To a Young Poet” (1934), “The Lonely Land” (1936).Smith,PoemsNewandCollected. Toronto:OxfordUniversity Press, 1967.pp. 21, 50.

xiv






CHRONOLOGY

11,000 bc Earliest records of human habitation (Bluefish Cavepeople)

985/986 First European sighting of Baffin Island (“Helluland”),Labrador (“Markland”), and the Gulf of St. Lawrence(“Vinland”), as recounted in Bjarno Harjulfsen’sGraenlendinga Saga

1390–1450 Iroquois Confederacy1497 John Cabot sails to Newfoundland1534 Jacques Cartier sails to the Gulf of St. Lawrence1556 First map of New France, by Giacomo Gastaldi,

published in Giovanni Battista Ramusio’s Navigationiet viaggi, an account of Cartier’s 1534 voyage

1576, 1577, 1578 Martin Frobisher’s Arctic expeditions1605 Founding of Port Royal1606 Marc Lescarbot’s Le theatre de Neptune performed in

Port Royal harbor1608 Quebec founded by Samuel de Champlain1610 Henry Hudson sails to Hudson Bay; Jesuit Relations

(publ. 1632–73) begin with Pierre Biard’s letters fromAcadia

1613 Les voyages du Sieur de Champlain Xaintongeois1624 First written treaty (Algonkian-French-Mohawk Peace)1639 Marie de l’Incarnation sails for Quebec1659 Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Medard Chouart de

Groseilliers travel to Lake Superior and Michigan1664 Francois du Creux, in Historiae canadensis, seu

Nova-Franciae, describes an “immensity of woods andprairies”

1670 Hudson’s Bay Company begins operation

xv






chronology

1697 Louis Hennepin’s Nouvelle decouverte d’un tres grandpays features the first published illustration of NiagaraFalls

1744 Pierre-Francois Xavier de Charlevoix, Histoire etdescription generale de Nouvelle France

1748 Marie-Elisabeth Begon (1696–1755) writes letters toher son-in-law, published as Lettres au cher fils (ed.Nicole Deschamps) in 1972.

1751 First printing press in Nova Scotia1753 Peter Kalm’s Travels published in Sweden (English

version: 1770)1755 Deportation of the Acadians1759 Battle on the Plains of Abraham1764 First printing press in Quebec; La Gazette de Quebec

begins publication1769 Frances Brooke, The History of Emily Montague1774 Quebec Act1778 James Cook in Nootka Sound1783 An estimated 40,000 Loyalists emigrate from United

States to Maritimes and Canada1789 Alexander Mackenzie travels to Beaufort Sea (1793

expedition from Canada to Pacific, arriving at the BellaCoola River)

1812 War of 18121819–22 First Franklin overland expedition1821 Thomas McCulloch, Letters of Mephibosheth Stepsure1824 Completion of Lachine Canal; Julia Hart, St. Ursula’s

Convent; or, The Nun of Canada1825 Oliver Goldsmith, The Rising Village1829 Shanawdithit (known as Nancy or Nance April), the

last known Beothuk, dies1832 John Richardson,Wacousta; or, The Prophecy1833 First Canadian steamship, the Royal William, crosses

the Atlantic1836 Catharine Parr Traill, The Backwoods of Canada;

Thomas Chandler Haliburton, The Clockmaker, or TheSayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville

1837 Rebellion, Upper Canada, Lower Canada; Aubert deGaspe fils, L’influence d’un livre

1838 Literary Garland (1838–51); Anna Jameson,WinterStudies and Summer Rambles in Canada

xvi






chronology

1839 Lord Durham’s Report1841 Act of Union (Upper and Lower Canada)1844 Institut canadien founded; Toronto Globe established1845–8 Francois-Xavier Garneau, Histoire du Canada depuis

sa decouverte jusqu’a nos jours1845 Last sighting, in July, of Sir John Franklin’s second

overland expedition in Baffin Bay; Franklin’sdisappearance triggers some forty-two expeditions intothe Arctic North between 1847 and 1879

1846 Patrice Lacombe, La terre paternelle1847 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline, a Tale of

Acadie1852 Susanna Moodie, Roughing It in the Bush1853 Moodie, Life in the Clearings1854 Seigneurial system abolished; Reciprocity Treaty

between Canada and the United States (the firstinternational free trade agreement)

1856 Charles Sangster, The St. Lawrence and the Saguenay1857 Ottawa named capital of Canada; Palliser and

Hind-Dawson expeditions to Northwest1863 Aubert de Gaspe pere, Les anciens Canadiens (trans. by

Ch. G. D. Roberts as The Canadians of Old, 1890);Goldwin Smith, The Empire

1864 Rosanna Leprohon, Antoinette de Mirecourt1866 Napoleon Bourassa, Jacques et Marie1867 British North America Act; Confederation;

Constitution Act recognizes English and French asofficial languages in Parliament and Canadian courts;Sir John MacDonald Prime Minister 1867–73, 1878–91

1868 Canada First Movement founded; Catharine Parr Trailland Agnes Moodie Fitzgibbon, Canadian Wild Flowers

1870 Manitoba and North-West Territories joinConfederation

1871 British Columbia joins Confederation1872 Creation of the Public Archives of Canada (now the

National Archives)1873 Prince Edward Island joins Confederation1876 Indian Act1877 William Kirby, The Golden Dog: A Legend of Quebec

xvii






chronology

1880 Calixa Lavallee composes “O Canada” (wordsAdolphe-Basile Routhier); Ch. G. D. Roberts, Orionand Other Poems

1882 Royal Society of Canada founded by the Marquis deLorne, Governor-General

1884 Standard Time Zone system; potlatch ceremonyprohibited; Riel Rebellion 1884–5; Laure Conan,Angeline de Montbrun; Isabella Valancy Crawford,Old Spookses’ Pass, Malcolm’s Katie and Other Poems

1885 Canadian Pacific Railway completed; ChineseImmigration Act

1887–2001 Saturday Night magazine1888 Archibald Lampman, Among the Millet; James de

Mille, A Strange Manuscript Found in a CopperCylinder;Week 1888–95

1889 William D. Lighthall, Songs of the Great Dominion1893–1937 Canadian Magazine (combined earlierMassey’s

Magazine and Canadian Magazine of Politics, Science,Art and Literature)

1896 Sir Wilfrid Laurier Prime Minister 1896–1911; GilbertParker, The Seats of the Mighty; Ch. G. D. Roberts,Earth’s Enigmas;Maclean’s Magazine beginspublication

1897 Women’s Institute established1898 Yukon Territory formed; Ernest Thompson Seton,Wild

Animals I Have Known1899–1902 Boer War causes divisiveness between English and

French Canadians1901 Ralph Connor, The Man from Glengarry1904 Sara Jeannette Duncan, The Imperialist; Emile Nelligan

et son oeuvre, ed. Louis Dantin1905 Saskatchewan and Alberta become provinces1907 Robert Service, Songs of a Sourdough1908 L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables; Nellie

McClung, Sowing Seeds in Danny; Martin AllerdaleGrainger,Woodsmen of the West

1909 Canadian Commission of Conservation established1911 Pauline Johnson, Legends of Vancouver1912 Public Archives Act; Stephen Leacock, Sunshine

Sketches of a Little Town

xviii






chronology

1913 National Gallery of Canada Act; Marjorie Pickthall,The Drift of Pinions

1914 Komagata Maru Incident; War Measures Act; AdjutorRivard, Chez nous

1915 John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields” published in Punchmagazine

1916 Voting rights to women in Manitoba, Saskatchewan,Alberta; Louis Hemon,Maria Chapdelaine (serializedin Le Temps [France], 1914)

1917 Halifax Explosion; Conscription Crisis; Battle of VimyRidge

1918 Albert Laberge, La Scouine1919 Winnipeg General Strike; Immigration Amendment Act1920 Group of Seven founded; Ray Palmer Baker, A History

of English Canadian Literature to Confederation1921 Mackenzie King Prime Minister 1921–6, 1926–30,

1935–48; Canadian Authors’ Association founded1923 Chinese Exclusion Act1925 Frederick Philip Grove, Settlers of the Marsh; Martha

Ostenso,Wild Geese;McGill Fortnightly Review(1925–7)

1927 Old Age Pensions Act; Grove, A Search for America;Mazo de la Roche, Jalna

1929 Persons Case1931 Statute of Westminster1933 Claude-Henri Grignon, Un homme et son peche

(adapted for radio 1939; for television 2002); CharlesG. D. Roberts, Eyes of the Wilderness

1934 Morley Callaghan, Such Is My Beloved; Jean-CharlesHarvey, Les demi-civilises

1935–40 John Buchan (Lord Tweedsmuir) Governor-General1936 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation established as

independent Crown corporation; Trans-CanadaAirlines (changed to Air Canada 1965); FirstGovernor-General’s Literary Awards; Callaghan, NowThat April’s Here and Other Stories; A. J. M. Smithet al., New Provinces

1937 Donald Creighton, The Commercial Empire of theSt. Lawrence, 1760–1850; Hector de Saint-DenysGarneau, Regards et jeux dans l’espace; Felix-AntoineSavard,Menaud, maıtre-draveur

xix






chronology

1938 Ringuet, Trente arpents1939 National Film Board; Howard O’Hagan, Tay John;

Anne Marriott, The Wind Our Enemy1940 Unemployment Insurance Act; voting rights granted to

women in Quebec (the last province to do so);A. M. Klein, Hath Not a Jew; E. J. Pratt, Brebeuf andHis Brethren

1941 Emily Carr, Klee Wyck; Sinclair Ross, As for Me andMy House; Hugh MacLennan, Barometer Rising

1942 Dominion Plebiscite Act; Conscription Crisis;Internment of Japanese Canadians; Earle Birney, Davidand Other Poems

1943 A. J. M. Smith, News of the Phoenix; Smith, Book ofCanadian Poetry: A Critical and Historical Anthology;E. K. Brown, On Canadian Poetry: Essays on Canada

1944 Creighton, Dominion of the North1945 Gabrielle Roy, Bonheur d’occasion (1947 Prix Femina);

Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau, Journal; MacLennan,Two Solitudes; Elizabeth Smart, By Grand CentralStation I Sat Down and Wept

1946 Canadian Citizenship Act1947 Chinese Exclusion Act revoked; GATT (General

Agreement on Tariffs and Trade); John Sutherland,Other Canadians; Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano;W. O. Mitchell,Who Has Seen the Wind

1948 Paul-Emile Borduas et al., Refus global; JapaneseCanadians (as last Asian Canadians) acquire the rightto vote; Gratien Gelinas, Tit-Coq; Roger Lemelin, LesPlouffe (adapted for television 1953)

1949 Asbestos Strike in Quebec; Newfoundland entersConfederation

1950 Anne Hebert, Le torrent; Harold Innis, Empire andCommunications; Dorothy Livesay, Call My PeopleHome; John Coulter, Riel (stage; radio 1951, TV 1961)

1951 Indian Act; Massey Report; A. M. Klein, The SecondScroll; Marshall McLuhan, The Mechanical Bride

1952 Vincent Massey first Canadian Governor-General;National Library Act; Universal Copyright Act; ErnestBuckler, The Mountain and the Valley; E. J. Pratt,Towards the Last Spike

xx






chronology

1953 Historic Sites and Monuments Act; Anne Hebert, Letombeau des rois

1954 Ethel Wilson, Swamp Angel1954–75 Vietnam War; Canada receives more than 125,000

draft evaders from the US1955 Glenn Gould records Bach’s Goldberg Variations1956 Avro Arrow production canceled; Leonard Cohen, Let

Us Compare Mythologies; Adele Wiseman, TheSacrifice; Sam Selvon, The Lonely Londoners

1957 Lester Pearson receives Nobel Peace Prize; CanadaCouncil Act; New Canadian Library beginspublication; Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism;John Marlyn, Under the Ribs of Death

1958 Norman Levine, Canada Made Me; Yves Theriault,Agaguk

1959 Maurice Duplessis, premier of Quebec, dies;St. Lawrence Seaway completed; Canadian Literaturebegins publication under the editorship of GeorgeWoodcock; Liberte established; Mordecai Richler, TheApprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz; Sheila Watson, TheDouble Hook; Marie-Claire Blais, La belle bete; IrvingLayton, A Red Carpet for the Sun; MacLennan, TheWatch That Ends the Night

1960 Quiet Revolution 1960–6; Status Indians acquire theright to vote; regular jet service, Toronto–Vancouver;Margaret Avison,Winter Sun; Jean-Paul Desbiens, Lesinsolences d’un frere untel; Brian Moore, The Luck ofGinger Coffey; Gerard Bessette, Le libraire

1961 Margaret Atwood, Double Persephone; Tish 1961–91962 Trans-Canada Highway completed; Marshall

McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy; Earle Birney, IceCod Bell or Stone; Rudy Wiebe, Peace Shall DestroyMany

1963 Lester Pearson Prime Minister 1963–8; SolangeChaput-Rolland and Gwethalyn Graham, Chersennemis/Dear Enemies; Parti-pris 1963–8; FarleyMowat, Never Cry Wolf

1964 McLuhan, Understanding Media; Margaret Laurence,The Stone Angel; Jane Rule, Desert of the Heart;Birney, Near False Creek Mouth; Paul Chamberland,

xxi






chronology

L’afficheur hurle; Claude Jasmin, Ethel et le terroriste;Jacques Renaud, Le casse

1965 Canada adopts Maple Leaf flag; George Grant, Lamentfor a Nation; Northrop Frye, “Conclusion to TheLiterary History of Canada”; Hubert Aquin, Prochainepisode; Blais, Une saison dans la vie d’Emmanuel;Claire Martin, Dans un gant de fer; Edmund Wilson,O Canada: An American’s Note on Canadian Culture;Roland Giguere, L’age de la parole: poemes inedits1949–1960

1966 Medical Care Act; Cohen, Beautiful Losers; RejeanDucharme, L’avalee des avales

1967 Expo ’67 in Montreal; House of Anansi founded byDennis Lee and Dave Godfrey; McLuhan, The Mediumis the Massage; George Ryga, The Ecstasy of Rita Joe;John Herbert, Fortune and Men’s Eyes; P. K. Page, CryArarat!; Scott Symons, Place d’armes; JacquesGodbout, Salut Galarneau; Glenn Gould, The Idea ofNorth; Yves Prefontaine, Pays sans parole

1968 Pierre Trudeau Prime Minister 1968–79; 1980–4;Dennis Lee, Civil Elegies; Aquin, Trou de memoire(refuses Governor-General’s Award); Pierre Vallieres,Negres blancs de l’Amerique; Michel Tremblay, Lesbelles-soeurs; Roch Carrier, La guerre yes sir!; Atwood,The Animals in That Country; bill bissett, awake in thered desert; Victor-Levy Beaulieu begins La vraie sagades Beauchemin; Alice Munro, Dance of the HappyShades

1969 Official Languages Act passed; Harold Cardinal, TheUnjust Society: The Tragedy of Canada’s Indians;Cardinal and Duke Redbird begin work on “RedPaper” (publ. 1970), in response to the Canadiangovernment’s White Paper proposing removal of specialstatus for Native people; George Grant, Technologyand Empire; Jacques Ferron, Le ciel de Quebec; RobertKroetsch, The Studhorse Man; Milton Acorn, I’veTasted My Blood; Atwood, The Edible Woman

1970 October Crisis; Royal Commission on Status ofWomen reports; Nuit de la poesie; Michele Lalonde,“Speak White”; Gaston Miron, L’homme rapaille;Atwood, The Journals of Susanna Moodie; Michael

xxii






chronology

Ondaatje, The Collected Works of Billy the Kid; SusanMusgrave, Songs of the Sea Witch; Robertson Davies,Fifth Business; John Glassco,Memoirs ofMontparnasse; Margaret Laurence, A Bird in theHouse; Dave Godfrey, The New Ancestors; AudreyThomas,Mrs. Blood; Antonine Maillet, La Sagouine(publ. 1971); Anne Hebert, Kamouraska; Rudy Wiebe,The Blue Mountains of China

1971 Alice Munro, Lives of Girls and Women; George Ryga,Captives of a Faceless Drummer; Paul-Marie Lapointe,Le reel absolu: poemes 1948–1965

1971–4 Peter Gzowski hosts the CBC’s This Country in theMorning (followed byMorningside, 1982–97)

1972 Atwood, Survival: A Thematic Guide to CanadianLiterature; Surfacing; bp nichol, The Martyrology;Carol Bolt, Buffalo Jump; Ann Henry, Lulu Street;Fernand Ouellette, Poesie: poemes 1953–1971

1973 Maria Campbell, Halfbreed; Dennis Lee, “Cadence,Country, Silence: Writing in Colonial Space”; RudyWiebe, The Temptations of Big Bear; Michel Tremblay,Hosanna; Rick Salutin/ Theatre Passe Muraille, 1837:The Farmers’ Revolt; James Reaney, Sticks and Stones(first play of the Donnelly trilogy, publ. 1975); HerschelHardin, Esker Mike and His Wife, Agiluk; DavidFreeman, Of the Fields, Lately; Calder case decided bythe Supreme Court, leading to Nisga’a treaty in 1996

1974 Laurence, The Diviners; Aquin, Neige noire; Chief DanGeorge,My Heart Soars; Michael Cook, Jacob’s Wake(publ. 1975)

1975 Cultural Property Export and Import Act; Lee Maracle,Bobbi Lee: Indian Rebel

1976 Quebec referendum on sovereignty defeated; SharonPollock, The Komagata Maru Incident; Marian Engel,Bear; Jack Hodgins, Spit Delaney’s Island; LoukyBersianik, L’Euguelionne

1977 Berger Commission, Northern Frontier, NorthernHomeland; Charter of the French Language adopted inQuebec; F. R. Scott, Essays on the Constitution;Timothy Findley, The Wars; Hodgins, The Invention ofthe World; Dennis Lee, Savage Fields: An Essay inLiterature and Cosmology; Bharati Mukherjee, Clark

xxiii






chronology

Blaise, Days and Nights in Calcutta; Josef Skvorecky,The Engineer of Human Souls; George Walker,Zastrozzi; Rudy Wiebe, The Scorched-Wood People

1978 Munro,Who Do You Think You Are?; Aritha vanHerk, Judith; Tremblay, La grosse femme d’a cote estenceinte (first volume of Chroniques du PlateauMont-Royal); 25th Street Theatre, Paper Wheat;Immigration Act

1979 Antonine Maillet, Pelagie-la-Charrette (PrixGoncourt); Denise Boucher, Les fees ont soif; MavisGallant, From the Fifteenth District

1980 “O Canada” officially adopted as national anthem;George Bowering, Burning Water; Nicole Brossard,Amantes; Jovette Marchessault, Tryptique lesbien;Robert Kroetsch, The Crow Journals; JudithThompson, The Crackwalker; David Fennario,Balconville

1981 Joy Kogawa, Obasan; Findley, Famous Last Words;Gallant, Home Truths; F. R. Scott, Collected Poems;John Gray, Billy Bishop Goes to War

1982 Patriation of Constitution, Charter of Rights; MichaelOndaatje, Running in the Family; Hebert, Les fous deBassan; Munro, The Moons of Jupiter

1983 Beatrice Culleton Mosonier, In Search of AprilRaintree; Penny Petrone, ed., First People, First Voices;Regine Robin, La Quebecoite; Sam Selvon,MosesMigrating; Makeda Silvera, Silenced; Susan Swan, TheBiggest Modern Woman of the World

1984 Findley, Not Wanted on the Voyage1985 Jeannette Armstrong, Slash; Fred Wah,Waiting for

Saskatchewan; Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale; DanyLaferriere, Comment faire l’amour avec un negre sansse fatiguer; Mukherjee, Blaise, The Sorrow and theTerror

1986 Robert Lepage, Vinci; Munro, The Progress of Love;Jane Urquhart, The Whirlpool

1987 Michael Ondaatje, In the Skin of a Lion; RohintonMistry, Tales from Firozsha Baag; Michel MarcBouchard, Les feluettes; Michael Ignatieff, The RussianAlbum; Carol Shields, Swann

xxiv






chronology

1988 Canadian Multiculturalism Act; Free Trade Agreement;Prime Minister Mulroney officially apologizes toJapanese Canadians for WWII internment; TomsonHighway, The Rez Sisters; Daphne Marlatt, AnaHistoric; Lee Maracle, I Am Woman: A NativePerspective on Sociology and Feminism; Paul Yee,Saltwater City: The Chinese in Vancouver

1989 Highway, Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing;Maria Campbell and Linda Griffiths, Jessica; HarryRobinson,Write It on Your Heart; Mordecai Richler,Solomon Gursky Was Here

1990 Meech Lake Accord fails; Oka Crisis; Maracle,Oratory: Coming to Theory; Thomas King, ed., All MyRelations: An Anthology of Contemporary CanadianNative Fiction; Nino Ricci, Lives of the Saints; Munro,Friend of My Youth; George Elliott Clarke,WhylahFalls; Sky Lee, Disappearing Moon Cafe; DionneBrand, No Language Is Neutral; Aritha van Herk,Places Far from Ellesmere; Rejean Ducharme, Devade

1991 M. Nourbese Philip, Looking for Livingstone;Monique Mojica, Princess Pocahontas and the BlueSpots; Bennett Lee, Jim Wong-Chu,Many-MouthedBirds: Contemporary Writing by Chinese Canadians;Rohinton Mistry, Such a Long Journey; DouglasCoupland, Generation X: Tales for an AcceleratedCulture

1992 Ondaatje, The English Patient (Booker Prize); DanielDavid Moses and Terry Goldie, eds., An Anthology ofCanadian Native Literature in English; HarryRobinson, Nature Power

1993 Thomas King, Green Grass, Running Water; King,OneGood Story, That One; Jeannette Armstrong, Lookingat the Words of Our People: An Anthology of FirstNations Literary Criticism; Pierre Trudeau,Memoirespolitiques; Jane Urquhart, Away; Carol Shields, TheStone Diaries (1995 Pulitzer Prize); GuillermoVerdecchia, Fronteras Americanas/ American Borders;Findley, Headhunter; Jacques Poulin, La tourneed’automne; Fernand Dumont, Genese de la societequebecoise; Paul Chanel Malenfant, Le verbe etre

xxv






chronology

1994 Charlottetown Accord fails; M. G. Vassanji, The Bookof Secrets (first Giller Prize); Shyam Selvadurai, FunnyBoy; Hiromi Goto, Chorus of Mushrooms; LouiseHalfe, Bear Bones and Feathers; Neil Bissoondath,Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism inCanada; Munro, Open Secrets; Anne-Marie Alonzo,Lettres a Cassandre

1995 Quebec referendum on sovereignty narrowly defeated;Wayson Choy, The Jade Peony; Rohinton Mistry, AFine Balance

1996 Nisga’a treaty; Atwood, Alias Grace; Anne Michaels,Fugitive Pieces; Anita Rau-Badami, Tamarind Mem;Gail Anderson-Dargatz, The Cure for Death byLightning; Guy Vanderhaeghe, The Englishman’s Boy;Ann-Marie MacDonald, Fall on Your Knees; LarissaLai,When Fox Is a Thousand; Shani Mootoo, CereusBlooms at Night

1997 Mordecai Richler, Barney’s Version; Dionne Brand,Land to Light On; P. K. Page, The Hidden Room;Urquhart, The Underpainter; David Adams Richards,Lines on the Water: A Fisherman’s Life on theMiramichi; Daphne Marlatt,Mothertalk: Life Storiesof Mary Kiyoshi Kiyooka

1998 Munro, The Love of a Good Woman; Anne Carson,Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse; Hodgins,Broken Ground; Wayne Johnston, The Colony ofUnrequited Dreams; Barbara Gowdy, The White Bone;Shields, Larry’s Party (Orange Prize)

1999 Nunavut established; Adrienne Clarkson becomesGovernor-General; Gregory Scofield, Thunder throughMy Veins; Alistair MacLeod, No Great Mischief (2001IMPAC Dublin Literary Award); Caroline Adderson, AHistory of Forgetting; Bonnie Burnard, A Good House;Johnston, Baltimore’s Mansion (2000, first CharlesTaylor Prize); Robert Bringhurst, A Story as Sharp as aKnife: The Classical Haida Mythtellers and TheirWorld; Claude Beausoleil, Exile; Gaetan Soucy, Lapetite fille qui aimait trop les allumettes

2000 Ondaatje, Anil’s Ghost; Atwood, The Blind Assassin(Booker Prize); David Adams Richards,Mercy amongthe Children; Elizabeth Hay, A Student of Weather;

xxvi






chronology

Nega Mezlekia, Notes from the Hyena’s Belly; Findley,Elizabeth Rex; Marie Laberge, Le gout du bonheur:Adelaıde/Annabelle/Florent (trilogy)

2001 World Trade Center attacked, Canada sheltersthousands of stranded passengers; Canada: A People’sHistory (CBC-SRC); Urquhart, The Stone Carvers;Richard Wright, Clara Callan; Yann Martel, Life of Pi(2002 Booker); Munro, Hateship, Friendship,Courtship, Loveship, Marriage

2002 George Bowering becomes Canada’s first poet laureate;Austin Clarke, The Polished Hoe; Johnston, TheNavigator of New York; Carol Shields, Unless; Mistry,Family Matters; Vanderhaeghe, Last Crossing; MichaelRedhill,Martin Sloane; Michel Tremblay, Bonbonsassortis

2003 Atwood, Oryx and Crake; Gowdy, The Romantic;Richards, River of the Brokenhearted; MichelBasilieres, Black Bird; David Odhiambo, Kipligat’sChance; Frances Itani, Deafening; Ann-MarieMacDonald, The Way the Crow Flies; Jack Hodgins,Distance; M. G. Vassanji, The In-Between World ofVikram Lall; Elizabeth Hay, Garbo Laughs; DenysArcand, Les invasions barbares

xxvii






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