The best of Canadian literature?

I’ve been accepted to grad studies in English Lit at Concordia University, and since I’m hoping to make my specialty Canadian literature, I was wondering what people on the board consider the best Canadian literature they’ve read? What’s essential? And since I know less about French-Canadian lit outside of Gabrielle Roy and Roch Carrier, who are our best French authors?

Also, since Juniper200 asked in another thread:

…what’s our best early literature, prior to the 20th Century?

That’s a toughie, because as a recent article in Maclean’s indicated, Canadian literature has sunk at the moment. Being Canadian isn’t really a selling point when it comes to getting books on the shelves. However, I recommend you examine some of the fine writers over at John Abbott College out on the western edge of the Island. They have some excellent wordsmiths (about 6 of which I had as teachers during my stay there) including Ken Radu.

Congrats on getting into my alma mater! (Yeah, I went to Concordia too.)

I don’t think that qualifies as “Canadian literature before the 20th century,” unless your professors were amazingly old.

The most famous Canadian author of all time is of course Lucy Maud Montgomery. My personal favourite is Robertson Davies - 20th century, but it’s the best I can come up with. I never liked Hugh MacLellan.

Perhaps it’s my ignorance, but it seems to me that virtually ALL the greatest Canadian writers are 20th century writers:

Robertson Davies
Hugh MacLennan
Roch Carrier
Alice Munro
Gabrielle Roy
Margaret Laurence
L.M. Montgomery
Mordecai Richler
Stephen Leacock
W.P. Kinsella
Margaret Atwood
Farley Mowat
W.O. Mitchell
Antonine Maillet

You forgot Michel Tremblay, RickJay :wink:

Let me add to that list
Leonard Cohen
Yves Theriault

If we’re talking only writers of long prose fiction, it’s true, the pickings are slim. We have a good number of short story writers, poets, and non-fiction authors of the period, but few novelists.

Still, off the top of my head, there is Frances Brooke’s History of Emily Montague from 1769, and epistolary novel and probably our first in English (coming only 10 years after the Conquest).

Rebecca Lephrohon had a few in the 19th Century, including The Manor-House of de Villerai.

If we include poets, there are the Confederation poets (Archibald Lampman, Duncan Campbell Scott, Bliss Carmen). For short story writers, Charles G.D. Roberts’ animal stories come to mind, as do Haliburton’s Sam Slick stories. For non-fiction, the sisters Catherine Parr Traill and Susannah Moodie are the most anthologized.

To add to your list, I’d put Joy Kogawa on that list for Obasan, which I’m reading now. And while he’s mostly forgotten now, but Ralph Connor was our first novelist who was widely read outside of Canada. His Man of Glengarry (1901) and Glengarry School Days (1902) are now, sadly, mostly footnotes in CanLit courses.

Also, of course, Gabrielle Roy and Roch Carrier should be on the list.

And what about Timothy Findley and Mavis Gallant?

I don’t know much about Theriault’s carrier detop. Any recommendations?

And I guess all this raises the question of who qualifies as a Canadian writer. The science-fiction writer William Gibson has lived here most of his life and his entire writing carrier, yet no one ever seems to describe him as a Canadian writer.

Funny, I hear Gibson referred to as a famous Canadian novellist all the time. I didn’t include him because I think his work sucks.

Another contemporary and well-read example is Douglas Coupland. Again, I do not like his work - despite his obvious talents I find his work largely pretentious, frequently cartoonish, and everything after “Generation X” has been trite.

I think an interesting discussion would be WHY the great, great bulk of Canadian literature is post-1900. A rock-stupid but possible true explanation would be that prior to 1900, there just wasn’t a lot of Canada. The population of Canada in 1867 was only about 3 million, few of whom were well educated. Canada did not have the educational or literary infrastructure at the time it later possessed. We tend to unconsciously compare our history to that the the United States, but we are in many respects a younger country; we were in 1890 where they were in about 1790, and I don’t know that a very high percentage of America’s great authors did their best work before 1790.

Here’s another: Douglas Coupland, author of the classic Generation X .

And RickJay beat me to it. Must be my slower “guest” access.

I have to admit, I do like both of those authors. I’m not sure I’d include either of them on a course syllabus of CanLit, though, except for maybe a Gibson story I once read about a horrifically gentrified Vancouver, I think in Burning Chrome.

True for novelists. But we had a large number of poets and short-story authors whose work has been simply forgotten.

One thing I noticed, looking over my anthologies and poetry collections of CanLit, is that a majority of our pre-20th Century prose writers are women – Brooke, Lephrohon, Traill, Susie Frances Harrison, Sara Jeanette Duncan. There are quite a few prominent male poets, but only Haliburton and Roberts stand out as male prose writers. I wonder why? There’s no shortage of male prose writers in the 19th Century in other Western nations.

True enough again. I seem to recall, there was some worry in the 18th Century as to whether America would ever produce a writer of substance.

Put me down as another fan of Robertson Davies.

And isn’t SF writer Robert J. Sawyer Canadian?

Service doesn’t get a mention?

Anyone who can write an epic poem called “Ballad of the Ice-worm Cocktail” with a straight face has got to be a serious talent. :slight_smile:

Yes, Robert Sawyer is Canadian.

To the list of French Canadian (or Quebecois) authors already mentioned, I’d like to add:

Hubert Aquin: his novel “Prochain épisode”, though not an easy read, is a very important work.

Victor Levy-Beaulieu is a cultural icon, a huge writer.

Gaston Miron, Emile Nelligan, Saint-Denys Garneau, Alain Grandbois, Anne Hébert are a few important poets who come to mind.

Yann Martel, the Booker-Prize-winning author of “Life of Pi” is Canadian.

I’m a big Barbra Gowdy fan - she’s won and been nominated for quite a few prizes in her time, including the Booker (I generally enjoy the books by the Booker winners and nominees).

I just finished reading The Romantic (her latest) and I thought it was fabulous.

Also, I’m surprised I haven’t seen Timothy Findley mentioned by anyone - he’s really a master of the morose. (Unless I missed his name somewhere in this thread…)

William Shatner, anyone? :smiley:

For your speculative fiction needs: James Cameron, William R. Dickson, Dave Duncan, Spider Robinson, Charles De Lint, Phyllis Gotlieb, A. E. van Vogt. I don’t read much by Canadian authors outside of this genre - Canadian authors tend to, well, suck. They have a real CBC stench about them, in my opinion. Of course, in university courses they will probably completely ignore the good sci-fi bunch in favour of the likes of ol’ sourpuss, Atwood.

Here is his bibliography Hamish, it’s in French but it should give you an idea. As for a recommendation, I would suggest his most famous novel Agaguk

And for other authors :
Germaine Guevremont with Le Survenant
Marcel Dube, influential playwright of the 50s and 60s
Gratien Gelinas, another playwright, especially Ti-Coq and Bousille et les justes
Henri Lemelin Les Plouffes
Felix-Antoine Savard Renaud, maitre-draveur

Don’t you mean Gordon R. Dickson ?

His work is certainly Canadian, but I’m pretty sure he wasn’t.

Paul Quarrington - for your wacky fiction. His Whale Music won all sorts of awards.

Guy Gavriel Kay - a very popular fantasy writer from Winnipeg.