Description
Book SynopsisIf literature has often informed the creation of a national imaginary—a sense of common history and destiny—it has also complicated, even challenged, the unifying vision assumed in the formation of a national literature and sense of nation. National Literature in Multinational States questions the persistent association of literature and nation-states, contrasting this with the reality of multinational and ethnocultural diversity. The contributors to this collection interrogate concepts and manifestations of nationalism in the context of literary production while evaluating the place of national literatures in multinational states at a time when social unity and political agreement have never been more elusive. The volume strives for synoptic analysis via the complementary, multifaceted treatment of literary creation in several geo-cultural contexts: Canada, the Caribbean, Europe, India, and Nigeria. Contributors: Sabujkoli Bandopadhyay, Albert Braz, Matthew Cormier, Doris Hambuch, Clara A.B. Joseph, Paul D. Morris, Asma Sayed, Matthew Tétreault, Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike, Jerry White
Table of ContentsIntroduction—Paul D. Morris and Albert Braz, “The Nation and Its Literature(s) – Representing People, Representing a People” Chapter 1—Paul D. Morris (Université de Saint-Boniface), “Reticent Nations: Governor General’s Award-Winning Fiction and the Representation of Canada” Chapter 2—Matthew Cormier (University of Alberta), “Cultural Memory, National Identity: The Changing Paradigms of Acadian Literature” Chapter 3—Matthew Tétreault (University of Alberta), “Literary Resistance: Situating a Métis National Literature” Chapter 4—Sabujkoli Bandopadhyay (University of Regina), “Intersections of Nationhood, Multiculturalism, and Globalization in South Asian Canadian Fiction: A Study of Anita Rau Badami’s Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?” Chapter 5—Asma Sayed (Kwantlen Polytechnic University), “Canadian Literature in Heritage Languages and the Politics of Canon Formation” Chapter 6—Doris Hambuch (United Arab Emirates University), “‘No nation now but the imagination’: No Caribbean Nation without the Dutch Caribbean” Chapter 7—Jerry White (University of Saskatchewan), “Rediscovering the Republic: The Work of Joan Daniel Bezsonoff” Chapter 8—Clara A.B. Joseph (University of Calgary), “A Multinational Narrative in a Case Study of Translating an Eastern Christian Play” Chapter 9—Albert Braz (University of Alberta), “Nigeria’s Other Civil War: Ken Saro-Wiwa and Ogoni Nationalism” Chapter 10—Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike (University of Alberta), “‘Write Only the Truth’: (Re)Contesting the Nigerian Nation in Chimeka Garricks’s Tomorrow Died Yesterday and Helon Habila’s Oil on Water”
