to discover the best of Canadian writing.
We got an interesting note in the TNQ (e)mail bag this week, from an American grad student with a hunger for Canlit. He’s been reading our litmags, but is looking for more:
I’m looking for recommedations for Canadian novels and memoirs, even story collections. Since literature is your business and passion, I figured your staff would be the ideal group to ask for reqs.
I used to work at a huge bookstore in Portland, OR. I’m finishing grad school right now for creative writing, yet I now realize how little I know about modern CanLit. Well, I know Carol Shields, Douglas Coupland, Margaret Atwood, Yann Martel and Ondaatje, but I want more. I read many Canadian lit journals, and am just starting to read the Journey Prize Stories anthologies, but I know more about your country’s geography, ecology, history and culture than literature. Basically: we’re neighbors. I want to have a closer relationship!
Yours in cactus country, Arizona,
aaron
Lets help Aaron out by showing him how glorious the world of Canadian literature truly is. Aaron reads this blog, so why not answer these questions to help him on his quest for great reading? I can tell you that he hadn’t even heard of any but one of the authors we recommended, which included one Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize winner.
1. Who’s your favourite Canadian author?
2. If you could only recommend one Canadian novel or collection, what would it be?
3. Free-for all. Tell us all about the Canuck work that has rocked your world.
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top Canadian writer: Bill Gaston
top recent novel: Gil Adamson’s ‘Outlander’
top older novel: Aritha Van Herk’s ‘The Tent Peg’
top short story collection of the late 2000′s: Rebecca Rosenblum’s ‘Once’
top memoir/creative non-fiction: Sarah de Leeuw’s ‘Unmarked’
I can’t pick a favourite Canadian author, but I found Deborah Willis’s Vanishing (and other stories) – publisher: Penguin 2009 – to be excellent. It’s been shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Award for debut short fiction, and will be published in the U.S. in August by Harper Perennial.
Margaret Laurence is a name I would add to a Canadian authors list as well as Timothy Findley, Sharon Butala and Jane Urquhart.
Southwestern Ontario authors that would add a recent dimension to such a list could include Marianne Paul and Susanna Kearsley.
I just posted a blog entry about summer reads at http://www.pm27canada.com/2010/06/june-8-summer-reads.html
–this is certainly a great time to make a reading list.
Have a fun read!
Your neighbour from the south thanks you all for your suggestions. My to-read list now seems half as long as our international border and I like it that way! –aaron