Canada is not a place that turns up regularly in the poetry, novels, plays or non-fiction memoirs of other cultures. Maybe that is because when foreign writers come here they tend to have immigration on their minds rather than tourism. Once they settle within our vast borders, we embrace them pretty quickly as Canadian authors, even if their palette is Mumbai rather than Montreal, Vienna rather than Vancouver.
But what about the writers who come just long enough to feel confident about slipping us into their pages? Or who never come but simply imagine Canada in their mind’s eye? What kind of portrait emerges when you look at our “few acres of snow” through outside lenses, as did Voltaire?
We asked some of our country’s own best writers (plus a couple of Literary Review of Canada insiders), based on their extensive and eclectic reading, to come up with examples of outsiders pronouncing on Canada or using aspects of it in their writing. One of...
Anna Porter is the author of Deceptions, an art-world thriller.
Bronwyn Drainie was editor-in-chief of the Literary Review of Canada from 2003 to 2015.
Esi Edugyan is the author of The Second Life of Samuel Tyne (Vintage, 2005) and Diese Fremden (Akademie Schloss Solitude, 2007). Her second novel, Half Blood Blues (Thomas Allen, 2011), won the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
John Geiger is the author of The Third Man Factor: Surviving the Impossible (Weinstein Books, 2009) and Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition (with Owen Beattie; Western Producer Prairie Books, 1987). He is president of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and editorial board editor for The Globe and Mail.
John Ralston Saul is author of A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada (Viking, 2008) and chair of the LaFontaine-Baldwin Symposium.
Mark Lovewell has held various senior roles at Ryerson University. He is also one of the magazine’s contributing editors.
Michiel Horn is professor emeritus of history at York University. He translated David Koker’s At the Edge of the Abyss: A Concentration Camp Diary, 1943–1944 (Northwestern University Press, 2012); he is also the author of Becoming Canadian: Memoirs of an Invisible Immigrant (University of Toronto Press, 1997).
Paul Wilson is a writer and translator who lives in the Town of the Blue Mountains. His most recent translation is Mr. Kafka and Other Tales from the Time of the Cult, a collection of short stories by the Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal, published last year by New Directions.
Philip Slayton’s latest book is Mighty Judgment: How the Supreme Court of Canada Runs Your Life (Allen Lane, 2011).
Steven Hayward teaches in the English Department of Colorado College. His most recent book is the bestselling novel and Globe 100 selection, Don’t Be Afraid. He is also the creator and host of the NPR radio program Off Topic.
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