When the British writer David Lodge wrote his campus novels in the 1970s and ’80s, he satirized universities of the day, mocking how seriously some academics took themselves. Those fictional professors, often inspired by scholars who could in some cases be recognized by readers, exchanged homes (as well as wives and lovers) while on sabbatical. Changing Places…
Catherine Khordoc
Catherine Khordoc is a professor in Carleton University’s Department of French, where she teaches contemporary Québécois literature.
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Catherine Khordoc
Over a career spanning seven decades, Michel Tremblay has often turned to his past for inspiration. Novels and plays set in the Plateau Mont-Royal or depicting French Canadian migration from the prairies to Montreal are loosely based on his own family’s history. Except for a few works of non-fiction, which are more explicitly autobiographical, such as Un ange cornu avec des ailes de tôle (A horned angel with wings of…
Dany Laferrière is known for writing novels that tend to be autobiographical or at least autofictional. He talks about his immigration to Montreal from Port-au-Prince and his early days as a writer in his 1985 debut, Comment faire l’amour avec un nègre sans se fatiguer (later published in English as How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired…
Nationalism is having a moment — at least in Canada. As I write this from my home in Ottawa, a reinvigorated pride in this country is palpable. People who were not feeling especially celebratory in recent years are eager to make it clear that we are a sovereign, independent country. There’s no talk of a fifty-first state in these…