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From the archives

Claim Game

The high stakes of fraudulent identity

But Blind They Were

The fallacy of an empty continent

The Canadian Conversation

A Polish journalist’s perspective on residential schools

Myra Bloom

Myra Bloom teaches English literature at York University, Glendon College.

Articles by
Myra Bloom

Little Woman

The latest from Miriam Toews September 2021
Miriam Toews’s eighth novel, Fight Night, takes the form of a long letter penned by nine-year-old Swiv to her absent father — whose whereabouts and motivations for leaving are, at least to her, mysterious. Swiv has been expelled for fighting and now spends her days in the school of life presided over by her…

Distorted Views

Essays on obsession and hypocrisy July | August 2019
There’s a certain ­phenomenon I’ve experienced a lot lately in one-on-one encounters with fellow left-­identified academics. One of us brings up whatever idea or cultural artifact is currently being championed in the zeitgeist and asks, tentatively, “So, what do you think of it?” The other’s shoulders hunch reflexively, eyes darting around the room with a mixture of fear and…

Invention of a Nymphet

The hidden origins and afterlife of Nabokov's masterpiece September 2018
In the opening lines of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita—arguably one of the most famous incipits of all time—the narrator, Humbert Humbert, engulfs the object of his desire in a linguistic caress: “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to…

I Was a Teenage Mystic!

The “confessional snare” and Québécois women’s writing January 2018
In September 2007, Nelly Arcan appeared on the talk show Tout le monde en parle, a cultural phenomenon in Quebec watched weekly by more than a million viewers. Her first two novels, Whore and Hysteric, had scorched the literary landscape with their caustic, quasi-autobiographical reflections on sex…