Poetological dominants of historical memory in works of asian immigrant writers in Canada

Abstract

Poetological dominants of historical memory in works of asian immigrant writers in Canada
 The paper highlights the development of literature related to the historical memory concept of Canadian immigrants from Asian countries. It covers the period of the late 20th ― first decades of the 21st century. The complex of problems, analyzed and structured within the semantic field of the modern historical memory concept, is often applicable both to Canada and Ukraine. The research broadens the knowledge of Canadian literature introducing the names of researchers and writers new to Ukrainian literary studies. The paper overviews the interpretations of Canadian Asian immigrants’ dispositions within the paradigm of modern arts and humanities. The focus is on the issues of double identity, the coherence of ethnic and North American mentality. The researcher generalizes the poetical aspects of the works by Ying Chen, Kim Thui, Joy Kogawa, Michael Ondaatje. Attention has been paid to the definition of discursive parameters, which allow shaping the concept of historical memory in ‘mosaic’ Canadian society; the issues of identities; the main markers of Canadian historical strategies; and versatile patterns of literary texts.
 The participation of Canada in the global dialog, which involves its culture and literature, plays probably the most important role in the debate on Canadian polyethnic literature. Regional, national, and international features demand some combined definition. The research explicates modern historical memory strategies in the context of conventional territory with its specific spatial and temporal characteristics. The author demonstrates the main local views on peculiarities of the Canadian literary process of the 2nd half of the 20th ― early 21st century and analyzes literary texts. All the novels show profound connection between representatives of Canadian literature, who may seem essentially different but manifest temporal and subjective similarity.
 The paper lists the names of authors working within the ‘double vision’ formula suggested by N. Frye. This approach focuses on the elements of North American culture pertaining to Canadian multicultural world structure as well as traditional cultures of the writers’ ancestral homelands. The paper also considers the generation paradigm, structured on the basis of social and historical algorithms and psychological markers. The types of generational modes (Kim Thuy, Michael Ondaatje) in literature were combined through a common denominator ― canadianness ― based on a double identity.