Canadian And Others

Alfred Wellington Purdy, OC OOnt (December 30, 1918 April 21, 2000)
was a 20th-century Canadian free verse poet. Purdy's writing career spanned
fifty-six years. His works include thirty-nine books of poetry; a novel; two
volumes of memoirs and four books of correspondence, in addition to his
posthumous works. He has been called the nation's "unofficial poet laureate"
and "a national poet in a way that you only find occasionally in the life of a
culture."[1] However, acclaim is not universal. Noted Canadian formalist
poet James Pollock, when asked to "Name one poet, living or dead, it seems
everyone loves but you," answered: "In Canada, Al Purdy. The emperor has
no clothes."

Jean Margaret Laurence, CC (ne Wemyss) (18 July 1926 5 January

1987) was a Canadian novelist and short story writer, one of the major
figures in Canadian literature. She was also a founder of the Writers' Trust of
Canada, a non-profit literary organization that seeks to encourage Canada's
writing community. One of Canada's most esteemed and beloved authors by
the end of her literary career,[2] Laurence began writing short stories shortly
after her marriage, as did her husband. Each published fiction in literary
periodicals while living in Africa, but Margaret continued to write and expand
her range. Her early novels were influenced by her experience as a minority
in Africa. They show a strong sense of Christian symbolism and ethical
concern for being a white person in a colonial state.

It was after her return to Canada that she wrote The Stone Angel, the book
for which she is best known. Set in a fictional Manitoba small town
called Manawaka, the novel is narrated retrospectively by Hagar Shipley, a
ninety year old woman living in her eldest sons home in Vancouver.
Published in 1964, the novel is of the literary form that looks at the entire life
of a person, and Laurence produced a novel from a Canadian experience.
After finishing school, the narrator moves from Toronto to Manitoba, and
marries a rough-mannered homesteader, Bram Shipley, against the wishes of
her father, who then disinherits her disinheritance a recurring theme in
much of Laurence's fiction. The couple struggles through the economic
hardship and climatic challenges of Canadian frontier existence, and Hagar,
unhappy in the relationship, leaves Bram, moving with her son John to
Vancouver where she works as a domestic for many years, betraying her
social class and upbringing. The novel is required reading in many North
American school systems and colleges.[3]
Laurence was published by Canadian publishing company McClelland and
Stewart, and she became one of the key figures in the emerging Canadian
literature tradition. Her published works after The Stone Angel express the
changing role of women's lives in the 1970s. Although on the surface, her
later works like The Diviners depict very different roles for women than her
earlier novels do, it is safe to say that Laurence throughout her career was
faithfully dedicated to presenting a female perspective on contemporary life,
depicting the choices and consequences of those choices women must
make to find meaning and purpose in life.
In later life, Laurence was troubled when a fundamentalist Christian group
succeeded in briefly removing The Diviners as course material from Lakefield
High School, her local secondary school.
The Stone Angel, a feature-length film based on Laurence's novel, written
and directed by Kari Skogland and starring Ellen Burstyn premiered in Fall
2007.

Francis Reginald Scott, CC, commonly known as Frank Scott or F. R.

Scott (August 1, 1899 January 30, 1985), was a Canadian poet, intellectual
and constitutional expert. He helped found the first Canadian social
democratic party, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, and its
successor, the New Democratic Party. He won Canada's top literary prize, the
Governor General's Award, twice, once for poetry and once for non-fiction.
He was married to artist Marian Dale Scott.

Margaret Eleanor Atwood, CC OOnt FRSC (born November 18, 1939) is a

Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist.
She is a winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and Prince of Asturias Award for
Literature, has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times, winning once,
and has been a finalist for the Governor General's Award several times,
winning twice.[citation needed] She is also a founder of the Writers' Trust of Canada,
a non-profit literary organization that seeks to encourage Canada's writing
community.[citation needed]
While she is best known for her work as a novelist, she has also published
fifteen books of poetry.[1][2] Many of her poems have been inspired by myths
and fairy tales, which have been interests of hers from an early age.
[3]
Atwood has published short stories in Tamarack Review,
Alphabet,Harper's, CBC Anthology, Ms., Saturday Night, and many other
magazines. She has also published four collections of stories and three
collections of unclassifiable short prose works.

Booker Prize, 2000

The Edible Woman is a 1969 novel that helped to establish Margaret
Atwood as a prose writer of major significance. It is the story of a
young woman whose sane, structured, consumer-oriented world starts
to slip out of focus. Following her engagement, Marian feels her body
and her self are becoming separated. As Marian begins endowing food
with human qualities that cause her to identify with it, she finds herself
unable to eat, repelled by metaphorical cannibalism.[1] In a foreword
written in 1979 for the Virago edition of The Edible Woman, Atwood
described the work as protofeministrather than feminist.[2]
Atwood explores gender stereotypes through characters who strictly
adhere to them (such as Peter or Lucy) and those who defy their
constraints (such as Ainsley or Duncan). The narrative point of view
shifts from first to third person, accentuating Marian's slow detachment
from reality. At the conclusion, first person narration returns, consistent
with the character's willingness to take control of her life again. Food
and clothing are major symbols used by the author to explore themes
and grant the reader insight on each of the characters' personalities,
moods and motivations.
Setting is used to identify differences between the characters; for
example, Duncan is encountered in a mundane laundromat, gloomy
theatre or sleazy hotel. In comparison, Peter inhabits genteel bars and
a sparkling new apartment. However these changing environments are
also used to explore different angles of existence, contrasting a freer,
wilder glimpse of life, with a civilised, gilded cage. This highlights the
difficulties presented to women in the era, where freedom was
synonymous with uncertainty but marriage presented problems of its
own.
This novel's publication coincided with the rise of the women's
movement in North America, but is described by Atwood as
"protofeminist" because it was written in 1965[3] and thus
anticipated second wave feminism.[4]
Surfacing is the second published novel by Canadian author Margaret
Atwood. It was first published by McClelland and Stewart in 1972. It has
been called a companion novel to Atwood's collection of poems, Power
Politics,[1] which was written the previous year and deals with
complementary issues.
The novel, grappling with notions of national and gendered identity,
anticipated rising concerns about conservation and preservation and
 the emergence of Canadian nationalism.[2] It was adapted into a
movie in 1981
The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel, a work of science
fiction or speculative fiction,[1] written by Canadian author Margaret Atwood[2]
[3]
and first published by McClelland and Stewart in 1985. Set in the near
future, in a totalitarian Christian theocracy which has overthrown the United
Statesgovernment, The Handmaid's Tale explores themes of women in
subjugation and the various means by which they gain agency. The novel's
title was inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, which is a
series of connected stories ("The Merchant's Tale", "The Parson's Tale", etc.)

Cat's Eye is a 1988 novel by Margaret Atwood. In it, controversial painter

Elaine Risley vividly reflects on her childhood and teenage years. Her
strongest memories are of Cordelia, who was the leader of a trio of girls who
were both very cruel and very kind to her in ways that tint Elaine's
perceptions of relationships and her worldnot to mention her artinto the
character's middle years. The novel unfolds in Canada of the mid-20th
century, from World War II to the late 1980s, and includes a look at many of
the cultural elements of that time period, including feminism and various
modern art movements.

The Blind Assassin is an award-winning, bestselling novel by

the Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. It was first published by McClelland
and Stewartin 2000. Set in Canada, it is narrated from the present day,
referring back to events that span the twentieth century.
The work was awarded the Man Booker Prize in 2000 and the Hammett
Prize in 2001. It was also nominated for Governor General's Award in
2000,Orange Prize for Fiction, and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary
Award in 2002.[1] Time Magazine named it the best novel of 2000 and
included it in its list of the 100 greatest English-language novels since 1923

Philip Michael Ondaatje, OC (/ndti/; born September 12, 1943), is

a Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist and poet. He won the Booker Prize for
his novel The English Patient, which was adapted into an Academy Award-
winning film. Ondaatje's work includes fiction, autobiography, poetry and
film. He has published 13 books of poetry, and won the Governor General's
Award for The Collected Works of Billy the Kid (1970) and There's a Trick
With a Knife I'm Learning to Do: Poems 1973-1978 (1979). Anil's Ghost was
the winner of the 2000 Giller Prize, the Prix Mdicis, the Kiriyama Pacific Rim
Book Prize, the 2001 Irish Times International Fiction Prize and
Canada's Governor General's Award. The English Patient won the Booker
Prize, the Canada Australia Prize, and the Governor General's Award and was
later made into a motion picture, which won the Academy Award for Best
Picture. In the Skin of a Lion, a fictional story about early immigrant settlers
in Toronto, was the winner of the 1988 City of Toronto Book Award, finalist for
the 1987 Ritz Paris Hemingway Award for best novel of the year in English,
and winner of the first Canada Reads competition in 2002. Coming Through
Slaughter, is a fictional story of New Orleans, Louisiana circa 1900 loosely
based on the lives of jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden and photographer E. J.
Bellocq. It was the winner of the 1976 Books in Canada First Novel
Award. Divisaderowon the 2007 Governor General's Award. Running in the
Family (1982) is a semi-fictional memoir of his Sri Lankan childhood.

Novels[edit]

1976: Coming Through Slaughter (also see "Other" section, 1980,

below), Toronto: Anansi ISBN 0-393-08765-4 ; New York: W. W. Norton,
1977[4]
1987: In the Skin of a Lion, New York: Knopf,[4] ISBN 0-394-56363-
8, ISBN 0-14-011309-6

1992: The English Patient, New York: Knopf,[4] ISBN 0-679-41678-

1, ISBN 0-679-74520-3

2000: Anil's Ghost, New York: Knopf,[4] ISBN 0-375-41053-8

2007: Divisadero, ISBN 0-307-26635-4 ISBN 9780307266354

2011: The Cat's Table, ISBN 978-0-7710-6864-5, ISBN 0-7710-6864-6

Joy Nozomi Kogawa, CM, OBC (born June 6, 1935) is a

Canadian poet and novelist of Japanese descent.

Obasan is a novel by the Japanese-Canadian author Joy Kogawa. First

published by Lester and Orpen Dennys in 1981, it
chronicles Canada'sinternment and persecution of its citizens
of Japanese descent during World War II from the perspective of a young
child. In 2005, it was the One Book, One Vancouver selection.
The book is often required reading for university English courses on Canadian
Literature. It also figures in Ethnic Studies and Asian American Literature [sic]
courses in the United States.
Kogawa uses strong imagery of silence, stones and streams throughout the
novel. Themes depicted in the novel include memory and forgetting,
prejudice and tolerance, identity, and justice versus injustice. Kogawa
contemplates many of these themes in her poetry as well.

George Ryga (27 Jul 1932 18 Nov 1987) was a Canadian playwright and
novelist.
Ryga was born in Deep Creek (5457'N,11313'W) near Athabasca, Alberta to
poor Ukrainian immigrant parents. Unable to continue his schooling past
grade six, he worked at a variety of jobs, including radio copywriter. Ryga
continued to study, taking correspondence courses, and winning a
scholarship to the Banff School of Fine Arts. In 1955, he travelled to Europe,
where he attended the World Assembly for Peace in Helsinki and worked for
the BBC. The following year he returned to Canada. While living in Edmonton,
he published his first book, Song of My Hands (1956), a collection of poems.
Ryga's first play, Indian, was performed on television in 1961. He achieved
national exposure with The Ecstasy of Rita Joe in 1967. The work, considered
by many to be the most important English-language play by a Canadian
playwright, is the story of a young native woman arriving in the city who
finds that she has no place with either her own people or the white man. It
was performed in Vancouver, at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa and
in Washington State. In 1971, the work was performed as a ballet by
the Royal Winnipeg Ballet.
Other plays by Ryga include:

Captives of the Faceless Drummer - 1971

Sunrise on Sarah - 1972

Portrait of Angelica - 1973

Ploughmen of the Glacier - 1977

In the Shadow of the Vulture - 1985

Paracelsus - 1986

Summerland - 1992

James Sinclair Ross, CM (January 22, 1908 February 29, 1996) was a
Canadian banker and author, best known for his fiction about life in
theCanadian prairies. He is best known for his first novel, As For Me and My
House.
As For Me and My House (1941), by Canadian author Sinclair Ross, was
first published by the American company Reynal and Hitchcock, with little
fanfare. Its 1957 Canadian re-issue, by McClelland & Stewart, as part of their
New Canadian Library line, began its canonization, mostly in university
classrooms. Set during the Great Depression in the fictional mid-western
prairie town of Horizon (the precise location of Horizon is not provided, and
could conceivably be in either Canada or the United States), it deals with the
experiences of a minister's wife, her husband and their struggles and
hardships.