Contemporary Canadian Women's Fiction Refiguring Identities

by Howells, Coral Ann

• ISBN13: 9780312239008
• ISBN10: 0312239009
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-08-23
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

This book charts the significant changes in contemporary Canada's literary profile since the mid-1990s, within a context of the new national rhetoric of multiculturalism. By looking closely at a representative range of fictions in English by women from a variety of ethnocultural backgrounds, Coral Ann Howells examines the complexities embedded within Canadian identity. What does "Refiguring Identities" mean for these writers, given their individual agendas and the multiple affiliation of any woman's identity construction? All these writers are engaged in rewriting history across generations, and Howells argues that women's fiction negotiates new possibilities for cultural change, introducing more heterogeneous narratives of identity in multicultural Canada.

Author Biography

Coral Ann Howells is Professor of English and Canadian Literature, University of Reading, England.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(8)
Refiguring Identities	9	(16)
``Don't ever ask for the true story'': Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace, and The Blind Assassin	25	(28)
Intimate Dislocations: Alice Munro, Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage	53	(26)
Identities Cut in Freestone: Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries, and Larry's Party	79	(24)
``How do we know we are who we think we are?'': Ann-Marie MacDonald, Fall on Your Knees	103	(22)
Monsters and Monstrosity: Kerri Sakamoto, The Electrical Field	125	(18)
Changing the Boundaries of Identity: Shani Mootoo, Cereus Blooms at Night	143	(56)
First Nations: Cross-Cultural Encounters, Hybridized Identities
Writing on the Borders: Gail Anderson-Dargatz, The Cure for Death by Lightning	167	(16)
First Nations: Cross-Cultural Encounters, Hybridized Identities
Writing in English, Dreaming in Haisla: Eden Robinson, Monkey Beach	183	(16)
Conclusion	199	(6)
Notes	205	(16)
Works Cited	221	(6)
Index	227