From unappreciated railway workers facing institutional racism and neglect in the last century to national cultural figures of the present, the Chinese, like other coloured peoples of Canada, have made great inroads into the mainstream, which in turn has adjusted its self-image to accommodate diversity.

“…an important milestone in the evolution of Canadian literary studies”

—Arun Mukherjee, York University

CRITICISM

ISBN 9780920661697  $21.95  paper

A tough, hard-hitting look at Canadian cultural institutions that places them in the continuous tradition of the Western imperialistic enterprise that dominated the third world and now dominates immigrant culture in the West.

Interviews with some of the major South Asian writers from across the globe, including Vikram Seth, Tariq Ali, David Dabydeen, Shashi Tharoor, Bapsi Sidhwa.

The poetry and prose of Rienzi Crusz are about many things—exile, identity, family, religion, politics, and racism—and this work is an attempt to demonstrate that the various facets are a result of a holistic vision that transcends narrow labels. Crusz is best known in Canada as a diasporic writer, committed to exploring the complexities of living between and among two worlds. This study goes beyond binary formulations to argue that while such markers are necessary, a full understanding of the poet's achievement requires that personal history, the political context of migration, poetic influences, and readership in Canada be taken into account. A carefully researched and definitive study, Dark Antonyms and Paradise offers an insightful reading of the work of a major Sri Lankan Canadian poet.

This collection of ground-breaking essays looks at some of the leading new trends and writers who have transformed the face of Canadian literature in the last thirty years. The ten essays and fifteen book reviews consider in detail the works of Rohinton Mistry, Dionne Brand, Austin Clarke, MG Vassanji, Shyam Selvadurai, Josef Skvorecki, and many others.

This thoroughly-researched and well-documented book looks at several of the key aspects of the phenomenon of Indian indentured labour in the West Indies, from beginning to end—from the methods of recruitment in Northern India, the conditions of potential labourers in the Calcutta depots and aboard ships in transit; through conditions on the plantations in British Guiana (Guyana) and the protests and strikes against abuses; to the final abolition campaign in India and its success in 1918.

"Basdeo Mangru is a careful and thorough scholar who has studied the sources in great detail, including records which have scarcely been examined by earlier writers on the Indian diaspora... A sound contribution to West Indian and Imperial history." —Donald Wood, University of Sussex

"... will make a lasting impact on Indo-Caribbean scholarship. He is meticulous, original, and above all committed to his subject." —David Dabydeen

"... Erudite, lucid scholarship. Mangru's meticulous research produces long-awaited and convincing evidence of the struggles of the Indians for their rightful place in the Caribbean."

—Frank Birbalsingh, York University

"The Invention of Canada is a well-researched introduction to the theory and practice of writing. There is an effortless fluidity of style which makes the book a pleasure to read. It is a powerful base from which to construct the argument for a Canadian imagination which displays the perils and strengths of an alternative tradition to that dominated by Frye, Atwood, Dennis Lee and the Toronto school." —Ian Davies

At no time in history has there been such a massive movement across geographical, political, and cultural barriers as the one we are witnessing in our own time. The South Asian presence in Canada and the West is a result of this movement. It originates predominately from the countries of South Asia—India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka—and those of the Caribbean and East and South Africa.

Whatever it has meant historically and come to mean today, Canadian identity has always been felt passionately, even as Canadian nationhood has been perceived to be at the brink, under attack from forces both within and without the country.

In these eighteen essays Birbalsingh discusses the evolution of Canadian identity and nationhood as reflected, predominately, in the English fiction of this country, from the writings of the first British expatriates, through the colonial, empire-conscious works of the nineteenth century, to the strongly nationalistic literary consciousness of the mid-twentieth century and finally the contemporary work of a multicultural country continually transforming itself.

In these closely argued essays, taking examples from writing and film, Mukherjee considers the place of the third world person – both as artistic creator and as a subject of artistic endeavour – in the West.
This important work includes detailed and original considerations of the works of David Lean, Michael Ondaatje, MG Vassanji, Earle Birney, Rohinton Mistry, Neil Bissoondath, Dionne Brand, and numerous others.

This work charts the author’s intellectual journey during the last ten years as an academic teaching Postcolonial literature in a Canadian university. The essays critique the dominant models of Postcolonial theory that emerge from metropolitan centres and ignore the specifics of time and place. Arun Mukherjee tests these theories by applying them to her classroom experience of teaching authors such as Mulk Raj Anand, Dionne Brand, Anita Desai, Claire Harris, Bessie Head, Sky Lee, and many others.

This study analyzes the manner in which important Asian American and Asian Canadian writers appropriate the short-story cycle as a tool for both self-representation and empowerment. This work specifically analyzes a number of major works by writers such as Amy Tan, Rohinton Mistry, Sara Suleri, Garrett Hongo, Terry Watada, Sylvia Watanabe, MG Vassanji, and Wayson Choy, among others.

"Transcultural Reinventions deserves notice for its commitment to a significant critical project."
— Canadian Literature

This work looks at three “borderlands” literary responses: those of the Chicanos at the border between the southern United States and Mexico, the African Caribbean minority in Canada, and the Native North Americans. Carmen Cáliz-Montoro shows how in these diverse yet similar cases mythology and symbolism get transformed and recreated to respond to the burdens of history to produce new works of art.

"A beautiful discourse on feminine spirituality in literature. Cáliz-Montoro’s writing is distinguished by a sincere search for truth, harmony, and peace."

— Frederick Ivor Case, University of Toronto

Through critical discussions of Marxist theatre in Bengal, the anti-racist and feminist poetry of Dionne Brand in Canada, the revolutionary poetry of Ernesto Cardenal in Nicaragua, a recent popular trend in Bengali fiction, and the films of Russian Andrei Tarkovsky, these essays provide acute, dispassionate insights into politically committed cultural activity. What is a true people's theatre (as opposed to a middle-class version of one?) How is Marxism reconciled with Christianity in Nicaraguan revolutionary politics? What has been the role and status of women actors in India? How does recent trendy Bengali fiction reflect an attitude towards acquisition of commodity (and women?) How does the mind comprehend history, in the films of Andrei Tarkovsky, and why do they unsettle the Western sensibility? These are some of the questions addressed in this well-argued, informative, and engaging book.