Beyond the Provinces

Beyond the Provinces takes stock of Canada’s literary scene at the end of the twentieth century, revealing the astonishing developments that have occurred in the country’s literary culture in the past decades and affirming the maturity of literary Canada.

In the opening chapter David Staines examines the colonial mentality that pervaded turn-of-the-century literature, was later challenged, and has all but disappeared at century’s end. In the second chapter he explores the unique Canadian presence in American fiction in order to examine the way in which Canada found its literary independence from the United States. And in the final chapter he proposes that Canadian literary selfhood has been complemented by a still tentative but distinctive critical voice.

(F.E.L. Priestley Memorial Lectures in the History of Ideas)