Contemporary Canadian fiction seems to contradict the postcolonial approach which expects an (albeit multicultural) national identity expressed in a national literature. Most Canadian authors are too busy writing for an international market. Nonetheless, Canadian fiction shares many silent assumptions about the importance of visionary (hi)stories as well as dystopias. Too often, settings elsewhere and histories of others emerge as allegories of a specific concern with Canada’s position in America as well as towards Europe, thereby exposing deeply ingrained cultural suppositions.
We will analyse three hugely successful novels by three famous authors in this course, focusing on the preoccupation with writing and rewriting 20th century political and cultural history in Ondaatje’s The English Patient and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, while considering especially the implication witness and survivor narratives of such histories in Martel’s Life of Pi. Students should read Ondaatje’s The English Patient in preparation of the term. Primary text knowledge will be tested in the course of the seminar. Requisites for qualifications (Scheine) will be discussed in the first session.
Editions:
Ondaatje, Michael. The English Patient. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2004.
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. Stuttgart: Klett, 2005.
Martel, Yann. Life of Pi. New York: Harcourt Brace, 2004.
Suggested Reading:
Corse, Sarah M.. Nationalism and Literature: The Politics of Culture in Canada and the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Lucking, David. The Serpent’s Part: Narrating the Self in Canadian Literature. Bern: Peter Lang, 2003.
