"Touching the future" : nation and narration in contemporary English Canada

Abstract

This paper intends to revise Canadian narratives of identity vis-à-vis the changing nature of recent fictional production in English. Cultural nationalism no longer seems to hold in the face of the contradictory movements of globalization and fragmentation of the national culture. The writings of Rohinton Mistry and Thomas King can be seen, I will argue, as paradigmatic of the physical and cultural displacements implied by those two instances of change respectively. I will then focus on two recent and very successful novels, M.G. Vassanji's The Book of Secrets (1994) and Anne Michaels's Fugitive Pieces (1996), which are partially or totally set outside Canada and have an emphasis on place as open text, as the site of complex negotiations of identity at the turn of the century.