War is traditionally considered a male experience. By extension, the genre of war literature is a male-dominated field, and the tale of the battlefield remains the privileged (and only canonised) war story.In Australia, although women have written extensively about their wartime experiences, their voices have been distinctively silenced. Shooting Blanks at the Anzac Legend calls for a re-definition of war literature to include the numerous voices of women writers, and furt...

As playwright, actor, director, teacher, mentor, theatre administrator, and critic, Sharon Pollock has played an integral role in the shaping of Canada's national theatre tradition, and she continues to produce new works and to contribute to Canadian theatre as passionately as she has done over the past fifty years. Pollock is nationally and internationally respected for her work and support of the theatre community. She has also played a major role in informing Canadians about the "dark s...

Alberta writing has a long tradition. Beginning with the pictographs of Writing-on-Stone, followed by Euro-Canadian exploration texts, the post-treaty writing of the agrarian colonization period, and into the present era, Alberta writing has come to be seen as a distinct literature. In this volume Melnyk and Coates continue the project of scholarly analysis of Alberta literature that they began with Wild Words: Essays on Alberta Literature (2009). They argue that the essays in their new bo...

For anyone who loves great literature -- or aspires to write it -- this is an essential collection, full of insight, wisdom, humour, and candour from Canada's most important and beloved literary figures.For the past twenty-five years, the Writers' Trust of Canada's annual lecture series, the Margaret Laurence Memorial Lecture, has invited some of Canada's most prominent authors to discuss the theme of "A Writer's Life" in front of their peers. Hugh MacLennan, Mavis Gallant, Timothy...

“The most important book to be written in more than 40 years about the rise of Canadian literature… Arrival: The Story of CanLit brims and crackles, in equal measure, with information and energy.” — Winnipeg Free PressA Globe and Mail Top 100 BookNational Post 99 Best Books of the YearIn the mid-twentieth century, Canadian literature transformed from a largely ignored trickle of books into an enorm...

Mythologizing Norval Morrisseau examines the complex identities assigned to Anishinaabe artist Norval Morrisseau. Was he an uneducated artist plagued by alcoholism and homelessness? Was Morrisseau a shaman artist who tapped a deep spiritual force? Or was he simply one of Canada’s most significant artists?Carmen L. Robertson charts both the colonial attitudes and the stereotypes directed at Morrisseau and other Indigenous artists in Canada’s national press. Robertson also e...

The study of children's illustrated books is located within the broad histories of print culture, publishing, the book trade, and concepts of childhood. An interdisciplinary history, Picturing Canada provides a critical understanding of the changing geographical, historical, and cultural aspects of Canadian identity, as seen through the lens of children's publishing over two centuries.Gail Edwards and Judith Saltman illuminate the connection between children's publishing a...

This book offers a comprehensive and lively introduction to major writers, genres and topics in Canadian literature. Addressing traditional assumptions and current issues, contributors pay attention to the social, political and economic developments that have informed literary events. Broad surveys of fiction, drama, and poetry are complemented by chapters on Aboriginal writing, autobiography, literary criticism, writing by women, and the emergence of urban writing in a country historicall...

In honour of Alice Munro's Nobel Prize for Literature, Anansi Digital is re-releasing a candid interview with Munro by Canadian novelist Graeme Gibson.Taken from Eleven Canadian Novelists, which was originally published in 1973 by House of Anansi Press, the interview is a revealing and wide-ranging dialogue between two writers, and a rare view of Munro and her work.With the intuition of an insider, Gibson asks the important questions: In what way is writing importa...

As Canadians, we remember the stories told to us in high-school history class as condensed images of the past--the glorious Mountie, the fearsome Native, the Last Spike. National Dreams is an incisive study of the most persistent icons and stories in Canadian history, and how they inform our sense of national identity: the fundamental beliefs that we Canadians hold about ourselves. National Dreams is the story of our stories; the myths and truths of our collective past th...

“We need to understand our stories because our lives depend upon it.” *—*Ted ChamberlinThe stories we tell each other reflect and shape our deepest feelings. Stories help us live our lives*—*and are at the heart of our current conflicts. We love and hate because of them; we make homes for ourselves and drive others out on the basis of ancient tales. As Ted Chamberlin vividly reveals, we are both connected by them and separated by their different truths. Whether Jew or Arab, black o...

Winner of the 2007 B.C. Award for Canadian Non-fictionA Globe and Mail Best 100 Book (2006)National Post Best Books (2006)A bold cultural portrait of contemporary Canada through the work of its most celebrated novelists, short story writers, and storytellers.Stories are the surest way to know a place, and at a time when the fabric of the country seems daily more uncertain, Noah Richler looks to our authors fo...