Abstract
This chapter sketches in some of the background against which Canadian women write, noting the cultural differences of Canada, its history and myths of wilderness, its US dominance. It looks largely at work by Alice Munro, Margaret Laurence, Margaret Atwood, and Carol Shields, and also indicates some of the more experimental, the indigenous, or First Nations writing, particularly that of Jeannette Armstrong and the migrant writing of Joy Kogawa and Suniti Namjoshi, among others.
He stood, a point on a sheet of green paper proclaiming himself the centre …
For many years he fished for a great vision, dangling the hooks of sown roots under the surface of the shallow earth. It was like enticing whales with a bent pin
(Atwood, 1996 [1972], in Thieme, pp. 356–7)
Our stories are likely to be tales not of those who made it but of those who made it back, from the awful experience — the North, the snowstorm, the sinking ship — that killed everyone else. The survivor has no triumph or victory but the fact of his survival; he has little after his ordeal that he did not have before, except gratitude for having escaped with his life….A preoccupation with one’s survival is necessarily also a preoccupation with the obstacles to that survival.
(Atwood, 1996 [1972], in Thieme, p. 360)
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Bibliography
Alexander, Flora (1998), ‘Feminist Critiques of Romance’, in Lynne Pearce and Gina Wisker (eds), Fatal Attractions: Rescripting Romance in Contemporary Literature and Film (London: Pluto Press).
Ashcroft, B., Gryforth, G. and Tiffin, H. (1989), The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures (London and New York: Routledge).
Atwood, Margaret (1969), The Edible Woman (London: Virago).
Atwood, Margaret (1970), The Journals of Susannah Moodie (London: Virago).
Atwood, Margaret (1972), Surfacing (London: Virago).
Atwood, Margaret (1976), Lady Oracle (London: Virago).
Atwood, Margaret (1981), Bodily Harm (London: Virago).
Atwood, Margaret (1985), The Handmaid’s Tale (London: Virago).
Atwood, Margaret (1993), The Robber Bride (London: Bloomsbury).
Atwood, Margaret (1996a), ‘Progressive Insanities of a Pioneer’, in John Thieme (ed.), The Arnold Anthology of Post-Colonial Literature in English (London: Edward Arnold).
Atwood, Margaret (1996b [1972]), Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature (Toronto: Asanti), in John Thieme (ed.), The Arnold Anthology of Post-Colonial Literature in English (London: Edward Arnold).
Atwood, Margaret (1996c), Alias Grace (London: QPD).
Brand, Dionne (1982), Primitive Offensive (Williams Wallace).
Brand, Dionne (1988), Sans Souci (Williams Wallace).
Brand, Dionne (1990), No Language is Neutral (Coach House).
Brydon, Diana and Tiffin, Helen (1993), Decolonising Fictions (Sydney: Dangaroo Press).
Brydon, Diana (1981), ‘Landscape and Authenticity’, Dalhousie Review, 61, 2 (Summer).
Brydon, Diana (1994), ‘Obasan, Joy Kogawâ s “Lament for a Nation”’, in A. Rutherford, L. Jensen and S. Chew (eds), Into the Nineties: Post-Colonial Women’s Writing (Armidale, New South Wales: Dangaroo Press).
Campbell, Maria (1995), ‘The Little People’, in Gerald Vizenor (ed.), Native American Literature (New York: HarperCollins), extract from Maria Campbell (1973), Halfbreed (Toronto: University of Nebraska Press and McClelland and Stewart).
Gunnar, Kristjana (1989), The Prowler (Red Deer College).
Jones, Dorothy (1994), ‘Restoring the Temples: The Fiction of Aritha van Herk’, in Anna Rutherford, Lars Jensen and Shirley Chew (eds), Into the Nineties: Post-Colonial Women’s Writing (Armidale, New South Wales: Kunapipi Dangaroo).
Kroetsch, Robert (1974), ‘Unhiding the Hidden’, Journal of Canadian Fiction, 3, 3, p. 43.
Kogawa, Joy (1981), Obasan (Harmondsworth: Penguin).
Laurence, Margaret (1994 [1970]), A Bird in the House (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart).
Lee, Dennis (1974), ‘Cadence, Country, Silence: Writing in Colonial Space’, Boundary, 2, 3, 1 (Fall).
Lemire Tostevin, Lola (1982), Color of her Speech (Coach House).
Lemire Tostevin, Lola (1983), Gynotext (Underwhich).
Lemire Tostevin, Lola (1985), Double Standards (Longspoon).
Marlatt, Daphne (1984), Touch to My Tongue (Longspoon).
Marlatt, Daphne (1988), Ana Historica (Coach House).
Moodie, Susannah (1988 [1852]), Roughing it in the Bush, or Life in Canada, ed. Carl Ballstadt (Ottawa: Carleton University Press).
Munro, Alice (1997), Selected Stories (London: Vintage).
Namjoshi, Suniti (1981), Feminist Fables (London: Sheba).
Namjoshi, Suniti (1987), ‘Look Medusa!’ in Illona Linthwaite (ed.), Ain’t Ia Woman: Poems by Black and White Women (London: Virago).
Namjoshi, Suniti (1985), The Conversations of Cow (London: The Women’s Press).
Namjoshi, Suniti (1989), Because of India (London: The Women’s Press).
New, W. H. (1989), A History of Canadian Literature (London: Macmillan).
Niatum, Duane (ed.) (1988), Harper’s Anthology of 20th-Century Native American Poetry (San Francisco: HarperCollins).
Palmateer Pennee, Donna (1994), ‘Canadian Women’s Literary Discourse in English, 1982–92’, in Anna Rutherford, Lars Jensen and Shirley Chew (eds), Not the Nineties: Post-Colonial Women’s Writing (New South Wales: Dangaroo Press).
Shields, Carol (1987), Mary Swann (London: Fourth Estate).
Shields, Carol (1993), The Stone Diaries (London: Fourth Estate).
Shikatani, Gerry (1996), ‘Here, not There’, in Juliana Chang (ed.), Quiet Fires: A Historical Anthology of Asian American Poetry, 1892–1970 (New York: The Asian American Writers Workshop).
Van Herk, Aritha (1979), Judith (London: Corgi).
Van Herk, Aritha (1984), ‘Women Writers and the Prairie: Spies in an Indifferent Landscape’, Kunapipi, 6, 2, p. 15.
Van Herk, Aritha (1989 [1986]), No Fixed Address (London: Virago).
Vizenor, Gerald (ed.) (1995), Native American Literature (New York: HarperCollins).
Vangen, Kate (1995), ‘The Native in Literature’, quoted in Gerald Vizenor (ed.), Native American Literature (New York: HarperCollins), p. 75.
Warrior, Emma Lee (1988), in Duane Niatum (ed.), Harper’s Anthology of 20th-Century Native American Poetry (San Francisco: HarperCollins).
Copyright information
© 2000 Gina Wisker
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wisker, G. (2000). Canadian Women’s Writing. In: Post-Colonial and African American Women’s Writing. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-333-98524-3_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-333-98524-3_11
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-72746-1
Online ISBN: 978-0-333-98524-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)