Book details

Publication date: December 2022
Keywords: national identity; geopolitical; postcolonial; theories of the nation; nationhood; multiculturalism; globalization; canon; Métis; Canadian; Caribbean; Nigerian; Acadian; Catalonian; South Asian; Comparative literature; literary analysis
Subject(s): LITERARY CRITICISM / Canadian, Literary Studies, Literary Studies / Literary Criticism, LITERARY CRITICISM / Comparative Literature, Comparative literature, Literary studies: postcolonial literature, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Literary Criticism, Canadian Literature, Cultural Studies, Canadian Studies, Comparative Literature / National Literatures, national identity; geopolitical; postcolonial; theories of the nation; nationhood; multiculturalism; globalization; canon; Métis; Canadian; Caribbean; Nigerian; Acadian; Catalonian; South Asian; Comparative literature; literary analysis
Publisher(s): The University of Alberta Press

Albert Braz. Albert Braz is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and English at the University of Alberta.

Paul D. Morris. Paul D. Morris is Professor of English at the Université de Saint-Boniface.

"The contributors to National Literature in Multinational States discuss the multiplicity and even incoherence of the idea of the nation, which presumes that the audience, the language, the territory, and the state all coincide exactly. But all states are perforce multilingual, multiethnic, and, yes, multinational. So what does this mean for the idea of a national literature?" Neil ten Kortenaar, English and Comparative Literature, University of Toronto


"National Literature in Multinational States tackles the compelling yet problematic, persistent yet elusive, theoretical and practical connections between nation-states and national literatures. It offers a timely and ambitious exploration of literary diversity in multinational contexts." Andrea Cabajsky, Comparative Literature and English, Université de Moncton

Introduction—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”
ISBNs: 9781772126075 978-1-77212-607-5 Title: national literature in multinational states ISBNs: 9781772126747 978-1-77212-674-7 Title: national literature in multinational states ISBNs: 9781772126754 978-1-77212-675-4 Title: national literature in multinational states