From a Speaking Place : Writings from the First Fifty Years of Canadian Literature

This book brings together 63 essays, notes and interviews from 50 years of contributions to Canadian Literature, Canada's foremost journal on the country's writers and writing. Included are such stylish writers as Margaret Atwood, Gerard Bessette, George Bowering, George Elliott Clarke, Wayde Compton, Basil Johnston, Janice Kulyk Keefer, Thomas King, Margaret Laurence, George Ryga, Andreas Schroeder, Audrey Thomas, Tom Wayman, Rudy Wiebe and George Woodcock. The selections answer intriguing questions: Which famous Canadian poet is a "gunman"? When did Bangalore move to Saskatchewan? Why is poetry a painting? a crime? The book invites you into a conversation (in both English and French) about what it means to be a reader and a writer in Canada. This Canada speaks: of Inuit voices and Al Purdy's "rock gothic", of Bombay and Trinidad, of "great traditions", urban findings, laughter, Acadia, nation, translation, theatre, exploration, life stories and more, from official languages and le monologue quebecois to Marshall McLuhan and "Hollywood Not". Illustrated by George Kuthan's woodcuts, the book celebrates Canadian Literature's 50th anniversary in 2009.