Canada Reads 2015

Canada Reads, CBC’s annual battle of the books, takes place this week! Over the next seven days, five celebrity panellists will defend five different books on their adherence to the competition theme. This year, they’re searching for the One Book to Break Barriers, which must change perspectives, challenge stereotypes, and illuminate issues. After each debate, a book will be eliminated and the ultimate victor will be crowned the book that all Canadians should read. The debates can be followed online, on the radio, or on the television.

Since its inception in 2002, the program has invited a great amount of critical interest, Canadian Literature included. Associate editor Laura Moss asks:

Why is it imperative that we, those who work on and in Canadian literature, take [Canada Reads] seriously? As a public presentation of a literature that is depicted as coming of age, Canada Reads has helped to open up Canadian literary works to a large market. Over the three years, it has brought eighteen writers’ names into prominence in the public domain. (Margaret Atwood and Yann Martel are listed twice.) It has become an important indicator of public support of the literary arts in Canada.

—Laura Moss, Canada Reads in Canadian Literature 182

With these assertions in mind, we published a special issue on the program in 2007. Other critical works on Canada Reads from our journal include:

• Canada Reads. (PDF) By Laura Moss. (PDF) #182 (Autumn 2004): 6–10.
• Listening to the Readers of Canada Reads. (PDF) By Danielle Fuller. #193 (Summer 2007): 11–34.
• Lullabies for Literature: An Interview with Heather O’Neill. (HTML) By Kristin McHale. #193 (Summer 2007):175–177.
• A Book that All Canadians Should be Proud to Read: Canada Reads and Joseph Boyden’s Three Day Road by Anouk Lang. #215 (Winter 2012): 120–36.

If you’ve enjoyed reading through longlist as much as we have, see below for a compiled list of works about the longlisted authors from our archives. Reviews of the nominated books are in bold.

Dionne Brand

Reviews of Brand’s Works

• Black Chronicles. By Pilar Cuder-Dominiguez. #216 (Spring 2013): 186-87. Rev. of Chronicles: Early Works by Dionne Brand.
• Mapping and Way-making. By Erin Wunker. #208 Prison Writing (Spring 2011): 191-92. Rev. of Fierce Departures: The Poetry of Dionne Brand by Dionne Brand.
• Poems of Witness. By Hilary Clark. #192 Gabrielle Roy contemporaine/The Contemporary Gabrielle Roy (Spring 2007): 177-79. Rev. of Inventory by Dionne Brand.
• Soul Survivors. By Evelyn C. White. #188 (Spring 2006): 183-84.
  Rev. of What We All Long For by Dionne Brand.
• Orbiting Toronto. By Heather Smyth. #182 Black Writing in Canada (Autumn 2004): 97-98. Rev. of Thirsty by Dionne Brand.
• Uses of Cultural Memory. By Maureen Moyangh. #170-171 Native / Culture (Autumn/Winter 2001): 193-95. Rev. of At the Full and Change of the Moon by Dionne Brand.
• Still Need the Revolution. By Susan Gingell. #161-162 On Thomas King (Summer/Autumn 1999): 182-84. Rev. of Land to Light On by Dionne Brand.

Articles about Brand

• ‘Streets are the dwelling place of the collective’: Public Space and the Cosmopolitan Citizenship in Dionne Brand’s What We All Long For. (PDF) By Emily Johansen. #196 (Spring 2008): 48-62.
• Mapping the Door of No Return: Deterritorialization and the Work of Dionne Brand. (PDF) By Marlene Goldman. #182 Black Writing in Canada (Autumn 2004): 13-28.
• Dionne Brand’s Winter Epigrams. (PDF) By Edward Kamau Braithwaite. #105 (Summer 1985): 18-30.

Thomas King

Reviews of King’s Works

• Rev. of The Inconvenient Indian. By Brendan McCormack. Upcoming.

Also see our Governor General’s Literary Awards 2014 post for other works about and by Thomas King from our archives.

Lee Maracle

Reviews of Maracle’s Works

• Rev. of First Wives Club: Coast Salish Style. By Madeleine Jacobs. Upcoming.
• Response and Responsibility. By John Moffatt. #184 (Spring 2005): 176-77. Rev. of Will’s Garden by Lee Maracle.
• Family and Forever. By Michelle La Flamme. #182 Black Writing in Canada (Autumn 2004): 154-56. Rev. of Daughters Are Forever by Lee Maracle.
• Being Raven. By Jo-Ann Thom. #174 Travel (Autumn 2002): 165-66. Rev. of Sojourners and Sundogs: First Nations Fiction by Lee Maracle.

Articles by Maracle

• Yin Chin. (PDF) By Lee Maracle. #124-125 Native Writers & Canadian Writing (Spring/Summer 1990): 156-61.

Articles about Maracle

• Global Drift: Thinking the Beyond of Identity Politics. (PDF) By Roy Miki. #199 Asian Canadian Studies (Winter 2008): 145-57.
• ‘A Life Only Has One Author’: Twice-Told Aboriginal Life Narratives. (PDF) By Sophie McCall. #172 Auto/biography (Spring 2002): 70-90.
• ‘Being a Half-breed’: Discourses of Race and Cultural Syncreticity in the Works of Three Metis Women Writers. (PDF) By Jodie Lundgren. #144 Native Individual State (Spring 1995): 62-77.
• ‘Pleace Eunice, Don’t Be Ignorant’: The White Reader as Trickster in Lee Maracle’s Fiction. (PDF) By Susie O’Brien. #144 Native Individual State (Spring 1995): 82-96.
• Contemporary Native Women’s Voices in Literature. (PDF) By Agnes Grant. #124-125 Native Writers & Canadian Writing (Spring/Summer 1990): 124-32.
• The Politics of Representation: Some Native Canadian Writers. (PDF) By Barbara Godard. #124-125 Native Writers & Canadian Writing (Spring/Summer 1990): 183-225.

Saleema Nawaz

Reviews of Nawaz’s Works

• Potential Energy. By Duffy Roberts. #201 Disappearance and Mobility (2009): 145-46. Rev. of Mother Superior by Saleema Nawaz.

Eden Robinson

Reviews of Robinson’s Works

• Indigenous Storytelling. By Nancy Van Styvendale. #219 (Winter 2013): 147-48. Rev. of The Sasquatch at Home: Traditional Protocols & Modern Storytelling by Eden Robinson.
• Fear Factor. By Laurie Kruk. #191 (Winter 2006): 182-84. Rev. of Blood Sports by Eden Robinson.
• Beauty and Substance. By Jennifer Andrews. #168 Mostly Drama (Spring 2001): 160-62. Rev. of Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson.
• Trapped Tales. By Dee Horne. #156 (Spring 1998): 160-62. Rev. of Traplines by Eden Robinson.

Articles about Robinson

• Indigeneity and Diversity in Eden Robinson’s Work. (PDF) By Kit Dobson. #201 Disappearance and Mobility (Summer 2009): 54-67.
• ‘Close, very close, a b’gwus howls’: The Contingency of Execution in Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach. (PDF) By Rob Appleford. #184 (Spring 2005): 85-101.
• Strategic Abjection: Windigo Psychosis and the ‘Postindian’ Subject in Eden Robinson’s ‘Dogs in Winter.’ (PDF) By Cynthia Sugars. #181 (Summer 2004): 78-91.

Doug Saunders

Reviews of Saunders’ Works

• Challenging Slums. By Daniel Harvey. #213 New Work on Early Canadian Literature (Summer 2012): 180-82. Rev. of Arrival City: The Final Migration and Our Next World by Doug Saunders.

Mariko Tamaki

Reviews of Tamaki’s Works

• The School of Life. By Gisele M. Baxter. #203 Home, Memory, and Self (Winter 2009): 133-34. Rev. of Skim by Mariko Tamaki.

Kim Thúy

Reviews of Thúy’s Works

• Rev. of Man. By Hannah McGregor. Upcoming.
• Face à l’autre. By Jean-Pierre Thomas. #209 Spectres of Modernism (Summer 2011): 168-69. Rev. of Ru by Kim Thúy.

Miriam Toews

Reviews of Toews’ Works

• Family Matters. By Tina Trigg. Rev. of All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews.*
• Allusions and Illusions. By Kathleen McHale. #213 New Work on Early Canadian Literature (Summer 2012): 156-58. Rev. of Irma Voth by Miriam Toews.
• Out of Control. By Paul Denham. #200 Strategic Nationalisms (Spring 2009): 196-97. Rev. of The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews.
• Uncomplicated Luck. By Lisa Grekul. #195 Context(e)s (Winter 2007): 185-87. Rev. of Summer of My Amazing Luck by Miriam Toews.
• Complicated Lives. By Barbara Pell. #186 Women & the Politics of Memory (Autumn 2005): 103-04. Rev. of A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews.

*Also nominated for the 2015 Folio Prize.