Canadian Authors Research Articles

Reingard M. Nischik, Engendering Genre: The Works of Margaret Atwood

Reingard M. Nischik’s Engendering Genre: The Works of Margaret Atwood examines, as the title suggests, the links between gender and genre in the literary production of the most well-known and most prolific of Canadian authors. It is quite a feat to say anything new about Atwood’s work, which has been the focus of scholarly criticism all over the world for decades now. Nischik herself is one of the two outstanding European critics of Atwood’s poetry and prose (the other being Coral Ann Howells...

Two Solitudes in the Global Village

In 1945, Canadian author Hugh MacLennan published, Two Solitudes, a novel about the tense relationship between Québec's French and English cultures. Today, "two solitudes" is the eponym signifying the divide between French and English Canada. Like MacLennan, Marshall McLuhan saw the English Canadians as the environment of the French Canadians. In the electric age, both populations grew acutely aware of each other's presence, and television abetted the quest for national identity by French speakers. That such a quest was accompanied by turmoil proved unsurprising to McLuhan. It is therefore not insignificant that the McLuhan centenary follows the 40th anniversary of Québec's October Crisis, when a group of Québec indépendantistes orchestrated kidnappings and assassination. Television viewers watched as Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau called in federal troops to quell further violence. A decade earlier, the Quiet Revolution had already begun transforming Québec. French speakers leapfrogged into the global village, and suddenly old environmental arrangements were no longer sustainable.

Characters with Disabilities in Contemporary Novels for Children: A Portrait of Three Authors in a Framework of Canadian Texts

A study of 50 contemporary Canadian novels for children and young adults explores patterns and trends regarding the construction of characters with disabilities, becoming a frame for the portraits of three Canadian authors, including a self-portrait. An adaptation of the Bakhtinian notion of the chronotope, applied to literary theory, provides a lens within which aspects of time and space are identified in relation to the internal chronotope of these characterizations, as well as in relation to the external chronotope of particular authors’ iterations, within their work, of actual space and time. A conceptual framework of critical literacy is used to highlight implications for including as classroom resources, texts about characters with disabilities.

Forget Modesty – Here Comes the Tail: Abject Bodies, Post-Humanistic Philosophy and Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl

Clearly influenced by Julia Kristeva’s psychoanalytics of abjection and a feminist, post-humanistic philosophy of multiplicity and becoming in the wake of Spinoza and Gilles Deleuze, Larissa Lai uses the abject and abjection – defined by George Bataille as ‘the inability to assume with sufficient strength the imperative act of excluding abject things’ – as key tropes in Salt Fish Girl . Lai’s negotiation of abjection is, however, not limited to the diegetic world of her novel. As a writer who also publishes critical work on minority writing and the politics of representation, Larissa Lai has commented on Salt Fish Girl extensively and in a way that disrupts conventional textual boundaries. Accordingly, this article not only addresses Lai’s depiction of abject bodies and processes of abjection within her novel, but also the astonishing amount of paratextual comment the Asian Canadian author has produced while self-consciously circulating her own body as an Asian abject defined by the discourse of Canadian state multiculturalism. It takes a closer look at the political implications of the highly ambivalent, queer narration, the abject textual body comprised of the novel’s text, and the enormous ‘tail’ of its verbal and performative authorial paratext.

Creating Characters with Diversity in Mind: Two Canadian Authors Discuss Social Constructs of Disability in Literature for Children

Children’s authors have not traditionally developed characters with disabilities to include a multiplicity of traits, crafting instead static, uni-dimensional portrayals. While books with depictions of characters with identified exceptionalities have appeared onbookstore shelves and awards’ lists, these characters have generally been relegated to subsidiary positions, assisting other main characters in their growth and development without demonstrating parallel learning. Two Canadian authors discuss their conceptualization of characters with special needs, exploring personal narratives which have informed their work and concluding that children require book collections which explore multi-levelled characters, encouraging readers to discover real life heroes within and among themselves.

Pesquisas com temáticas arquivísticas na Ciência da Informação: mapeamento das principais tendências

Este trabalho apresenta parte dos resultados de uma pesquisa de doutoramento, cujo objetivo é identificar as interlocuções entre a Arquivologia mundial e a nacional a partir das tendências internacionais presentes no desenvolvimento da área no Brasil. Nesse sentido, mapeia, nas dissertações e teses com temáticas arquivísticas produzidas nos vários programas de pós-graduação em Ciência da Informação, as referências bibliográficas arquivísticas, os autores e as obras de interesse direto da área, os países, períodos e idiomas de publicação. O universo da pesquisa aqui apresentado contempla cinquenta dissertações e teses desenvolvidas em oito programas de pós-graduação em Ciência da Informação de universidades brasileiras identificadas no Banco de Teses da CAPES. A partir da análise das referências bibliográficas arquivísticas dessas pesquisas, observa-se: a sua concentração nos programas de pós-graduação em Ciência da Informação da UFMG e UnB; a predominância da sua publicação no Brasil nos anos 1990 e em português (inclusive traduções). Há uma aproximação entre o número total de autores internacionais e nacionais mapeados, embora esses últimos sutilmente se destaquem. As trinta maiores frequências de referências arquivísticas por autor corroboram esse resultado, apontando a prevalência de brasileiros e de canadenses. As trinta maiores frequências de obras citadas também se relacionam, majoritariamente, a autores brasileiros. O mapeamento desses indicadores, numa análise entrecruzada, reflete os movimentos das tendências internacionais em interlocução com a Arquivologia brasileira, que, embora tenha um estatuto híbrido em razão dessas tendências, já apresenta uma produção científica consolidada, fortemente comunicada a partir das referências a autores e obras nacionais citadas em dissertações e teses com temáticas na área.

Psychometric characteristics of the Beck depression inventory on a Serbian student sample

Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) is one of the most popular instruments for measuring intensity and symptoms of depression in clinical and general population. The instrument has been translated into many languages and validated in many different cultures, but there is still no published paper on psychometric characteristics and the norms for the BDI in Serbian language. In this paper, we checked psychometric characteristics of the BDI-II on 400 students of the University of Novi Sad, Serbia. Descriptive statistics (M=8.02; SD=7.10), internal consistency (?=.87), and test-retest reliability (.63) are satisfactory and similar to the results of other validation studies. Convergent and divergent validity of the instrument are also supported by moderate to high correlations with the measures of similar phenomena (r=.70 with Depression Symptoms Scale) and by low correlations with unrelated constructs (i.e., r=.19 with Impulsive Sensation Seeking Scale). However, the divergent validity is not supported by a high correlation with a measure of anxiety (r=.70), similar finding is commonly obtained in other validation studies. Our results suggest cut-off scores which are similar to those suggested by Canadian authors (Kappa coefficient=.85). Two-factor structure of the inventory is also in concordance with other authors. Cognitive-Affective factor explains 29.27% of the variance and its structure resembles those reported in other analyses. The second extracted factor explains 7.76% of the variance and is saturated mostly with somatic items; however, a significant contribution of some cognitive items has led us to identify the factor as Exhaustion, specific to our student sample. The two-factor solution is confirmed by Confirmatory Factor Analyses once the item related to sexual difficulties was eliminated. General conclusion is that BDI-II has satisfactory psychometric characteristics and can reliably be used with Serbian student population.

Our Dear Cousins the Americans: Sara Jeannette Duncan in Washington

As a young woman, Canadian author Sara Jeannette Duncan (1861–1922) spent nearly a year writing for the Washington Post on literary and cultural matters, and published many of her assessments of American society in The Week, Goldwin Smith's journal of Canadian affairs. Her articles repay close scrutiny not only for their inherent interest as witty observations of America by an engaged Canadian observer, but also for the manner in which they reveal Duncan's national preoccupations and biases. Approaching the Republic with neither antipathy nor deference, Duncan turned her newspaper sketches into an occasion for wide-ranging cultural comment on the nature of the republican experiment – especially concerning America's claims to freedom and human flourishing. She found the results encouraging, if not without salutary warnings, for Canadian efforts in the same direction.

Canadian authors express "serious concerns" over codeine

Canadian authors express "serious concerns" over codeine

Divining Margaret Laurence: A Study of Her Compete Writings (review)

Reviewed by: Divining Margaret Laurence: A Study of Her Compete Writings Jon Kertzer (bio) Nora Foster Stovel . Divining Margaret Laurence: A Study of Her Compete Writings. McGill-Queen's University Press. xx, 406. $29.95 'Life is more important than art,' Margaret Laurence claimed, but as Nora Foster Stovel shows in this detailed, scrupulous, well-informed study, for Laurence the importance of life appears most subtly and sympathetically in art. Her writing illustrates the rival principles of fiction: first, the belief that life is messy but art arranges its vital disorder into meaningful, graceful patterns; and second, that life is neat (routine, conventional) but art disrupts its regularity through imaginative daring. Authors explore the [End Page 499] competition between these two principles through styles that are themselves neither neat or messy. Laurence's approach is to assert artistic authority in order to expose moral uncertainty. She called herself a 'Method writer' in the sense that she identified closely with her characters, even the nasty ones, but she is also methodical in her craft. Her precisely designed stories reveal that we learn only by making mistakes. They are always about learning, discovering, maturing, correcting, usually by reassessing past errors self-critically. In this sense they are progressive, and while they do not reach conventional happy endings, they offer a final sense of hopefulness to the reader: they 'affirm the possibility of a future.' Like Hardy, Laurence is a wary meliorist. These same principles inform Stovel's neat account of Laurence's life and works, as if the scholar has discovered a kinship with her subject. She analyzes 'Laurence's lifelong quest for her true place of belonging' by reading her life as if it were one of her novels, and reading the novels as a riper expression of her life. Her life, which Stovel describes at length, seemed haphazard at the time as she wandered through Canada, Africa, and Britain; but it inspired fiction and essays whose 'artistic alchemy' distilled a grand vision of human instability, which can be redeemed only by honesty and compassion. Individually each work reveals a scrupulous order; collectively they are united by a network of correspondences, 'presages,' and echoes, drawing them together in recurring patterns that culminate in her last novel, The Diviners. Stovel is adept at showing how the African writings stand on their own as early, postcolonial studies but also prefigure the Manawaka cycle in their characters, images, and themes (ancestors, survival, spiritual freedom, empathy, feminism); how the Manawaka novels enhance each other and are illuminated by Laurence's personal essays; andhowthe essays in their turn 'fictionalize memory' according to themes familiar from the novels. Laurence has been so celebrated and so carefully dissected as a Canadian author that it is unlikely there are many startling facts to discover about her life or new interpretations to give of her writing. Stovel's aim is not to be startling but to be thorough. Like Laurence, she is a great learner. She is studious to the point of excess, for example, rarely offering an interpretation without citing corroborating testimony from several other critics, and she has read them all. The effect is to swell her pages with quotations when her own judgment would suffice. She is also studious in her research, consulting archives, letters, and manuscripts. This produces some welcome results. She gives an insightful analysis of the manuscript of The Diviners, which was rigorously pared down following the editorial advice of Judith Jones at Knopf. It is hard to judge if the longer version would have been superior, but its very length suggests that Laurence's tendency to assimilate her earlier works was growing onerous. Given this cumulative pattern, it is no wonder [End Page 500] that she felt unable to write another novel. She tried, but as Stovel shows, the final attempt, Dance on the Earth, staggered under the weight of its ambition. Eventually Laurence turned it into a memoir in which she 'chose to choreograph her own life.' The phrase evokes nicely the artistry of her novels and of Stovel's study, which is an intricate dance through Laurence's writing career. Jon Kertzer Jon Kertzer, Department of English, University of Calgary Copyright...

The Influence of Daoism on Asian-Canadian Writers (review)

Reviewed by: The Influence of Daoism on Asian-Canadian Writers Timothy Yu (bio) John Z. Ming Chen . The Influence of Daoism on Asian-Canadian Writers. Edwin Mellen. xxiv, 272. US$109.95 The Chinese philosophy of Daoism has a 2500-year history, beginning with the Daodejing (Tao Te Ching, or Book of Changes), which influenced centuries of Chinese literature and culture. John Z. Ming Chen argues that the heritage of Daoism, with its emphasis on harmony and balance and its 'holistic view of the world as a living system,' can be found as well in contemporary Canada, in the work of writers of Chinese descent. Chinese-Canadian writing, in Chen's view, extends the Daoist strain in Chinese culture, adapting it to the situation of the Chinese in Canada and employing Daoist ideas to critique Canada's politics, its aesthetics, and its history of racism. Chen traces the presence of 'Daoist' motifs in a wide range of Chinese-Canadian authors, including SKY Lee, Fred Wah, Larissa Lai, Wayson Choy, and Jim Wong-Chu. Lee's Disappearing Moon Café combines a searing portrait of the overwhelmingly male 'bachelor society' created by discriminatory immigration laws with a feminist focus on the stories of Chinese-Canadian women. Chen reads this text as an illustration of the Daoist principle of yin and yang, which seeks balance between male and female. The prevalence of moon imagery in the work of Choy and others is read by Chen as another gesture of balance, 'a celebration of the hidden, of the dark . . . and of the less visible and hence marginalized and trivialized in dominant culture and/or discourse.' Images of mountains, water, gardens, and fields are evidence of a Daoist concern with harmony with the natural world. Finally, Chen identifies circular and repetitive motifs in the work of Wah, Lai, and Wong-Chu with the Daoist idea that 'circles and cycles lead to positivity, productivity, and creativity,' in contrast to Western notions of progress. Chen offers a useful explication of Daoist concepts that enriches the cultural context for reading Chinese-Canadian writing. Nonetheless, The Influence of Daoism displays the shortcomings common to many thematic studies. By choosing a motif such as moon or water imagery and then offering a catalog of works that display such imagery, Chen gives a tautological quality to his analysis. More seriously, Chen leaves unanswered the question of why themes such as male/female relations or repetition should be considered distinctively 'Daoist.' Chen occasionally advances useful evidence that his authors possess knowledge of Daoism or of Chinese literature and philosophy. But more often he adopts the essentializing position that Daoism is 'born and bred in [End Page 522] [the authors'] Chinese Canadian upbringing and culture,' viewing Chinese-Canadian culture as unproblematically continuous with Chinese culture and positing Daoism as the essence of Chinese thought. This overlooks the pressures of immigration, assimilation, and hybridity that have been the subject of much work in the field of Asian North American studies. And at times Chen's Daoist framework leads to rather puzzling interpretations of texts. Lee's Disappearing Moon Café is a scathing indictment of Canadian racism, showing how the policy of Chinese exclusion created an isolated community with few women that was 'ripe for incest.' To assert, as Chen does, that Lee's larger point is to illustrate 'the fundamental importance of yin/yang balance' might seem to undermine the historical specificity that gives Lee's work its power. The book is described as a study of 'Asian-Canadian writers,' but, curiously, only writers of Chinese descent are discussed. Chen also adopts the label 'Chinadian' for Chinese-Canadian writing, borrowing the title of Chinada: Memoirs of the Gang of Seven, a text by Gary Geddes and other white Canadian writers who travelled to China in the 1980s. However, the label 'Chinadian' is not generally used by Chinese Canadian authors to describe their own work, and Chen's adoption of the term risks absorbing the distinctive perspectives of Chinese-Canadian authors into a more generalized image of China produced by Western scholarship and the Canadian mainstream. The case for a Chinese-Canadian literary Daoism might be more persuasive were this book to have linked more...

Looking at Goethe’s Face

This paper attempts to change the in the title of the seminar in which this article originated, World Literature versus Comparative Literature, into something less confrontational, reflecting on how the two fields can become mutually helpful. The fundamental, historical difference between them hinges on the status of translation, which has indeed become a bone of contention in what is often seen as a struggle for disciplinary supremacy. It is not surprising, of course, that translation has gained a prominent place in any study of cultural expression in an increasingly globalized world. There are few comparatists left in the world, I would wager, that still hold to the old idea of purity, according to which any student of literature must acquire fluency in any language into which she may want to venture. We cannot all pretend to live in Istanbul with Auerbach and Spitzer in the 1930s, and the increasing Anglicization of the Western world hardly encourages the study of languages of smaller diffusion, even as they become more and more audible in the streetscape around us. Djelal Kadir's warning that resisting translation amounts to aiding and abetting terrorism provides a pithy parable that may serve as epigraph to my argument. It is, after all, better to know others a little than to know them not at all, and the resistance to translation threatens to provide an alibi for a cultural bunker mentality, a kind of homeland security that will certainly be of less ecumenical power in the long run than the diplomacy of cultural exchange. Still, it is one thing to acknowledge the inevitable march toward a global language and the necessity of teaching literatures in the language of students--and to write about it in the language of individual scholars--and quite another to dismiss bi- or multilingualism as an unnecessary luxury. The cosmopolitan speaks, or at least understands, more than one language, and if there is one way to turn the tables on xenophobia that is within reach in our classrooms, it is to value vernaculars as assets rather than encumbrances. The recent trend in translation studies toward the increasing visibility of the translator is a symptom of the desire to value not only the work of translation, but also the world as a multilingual place. What I would like to investigate, then, is whether, and how, it is possible to make translation visible in the unilingual world literature classroom and world literature scholarship. If Kadir sees the anti-translation comparatist as terrorist, I see the pro-translation comparatist as a kind of anti-totalitarian guerilla. Yes, it is a matter of perspective--one's terrorist is the other's freedom fighter--but at the bottom lies the same definition of the comparatist as one who commands more than one language and literature. The question I am asking here, then, is: how can the guerilla comparatist operate in the world literature classroom? How can we make translation visible so as to ensure that our students appreciate the otherness of a text originally written in another language while making it accessible to the unilingual Anglophone? Introducing texts in peripheral Englishes is surely commendable and even necessary, but I think it is not enough. The question is if, instead of having English hijack the Other, we can Other the supremacy of English. If so, this may be where comparatists can regain some of the ground lately lost to world literature without resorting to the terrorism of linguistic fundamentalism. I want to preface my argument with two case studies or vignettes. The first illustrates the itinerary from the old appropriation of voice debate--another version of the purity idea--to what I see as an exemplary model for a new radical pedagogy in the world literature classroom. In 1998 the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation showed a miniseries based on a novel by Canadian author Rudy Wiebe published in 1976, The Temptations of Big Bear. …

The LongPen™—The World’s First Original Remote Signing Device*

The LongPen is a remote-controlled pen and videoconferencing device conceived by Canadian author Margaret Atwood in 2004 and initially intended to bring "live" author signings to far away locations. The LongPen allows for individually inscribed long distance signatures and writing while maintaining an original record, written with pen and ink. LongPen specimens were compared with control specimens using different speeds, pen pressures, and types of pens. Preliminary indications are that LongPen inscriptions can be identified or associated with their author. Size and form are maintained and artifacts are subtle. Some limitations with respect to the capture of long tapered strokes, delicate connecting strokes, and differences in line width were noted. Factors which may impact forensic handwriting examinations include limited amounts of writing, light pen pressure, date of the writing, type of writing instrument, dimensions of the writing, and failure to consider that the device has been used.

S. Morra, C. Gobbo, Z. Marini, R. Sheese (eds.), Cognitive Psychology: Neo-Piagetian Perspectives (New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2008).

It was with great enthusiasm that I read this comprehensive textbook comprising analysis and comparisons of concepts across theories of four decades of neo-piagetian research and perspectives. This book, which is a joint effort of Italian and Canadian authors and scientists, is the first of its kind, taking the reader through a myriad of cognitive developmental theories where the light is cast on information processing and the capacity of human working memory as it gradually develops from infancy on. For an experienced developmental psychologist – implementing intelligence testing as contemporary custom prescribes, as well as teaching undergraduate students – most of whom are becoming teachers and psychologists – the contents of developmental psychology, this analysis on cognitive growth of the human mind, and a comprehensive overview of neo-piagetian research is bound to fall into fertile soil.

VENGEROV'S VIOLIN

The Yale ReviewVolume 98, Issue 1 p. 94-95 VENGEROV'S VIOLIN ELISE PARTRIDGE, ELISE PARTRIDGE Second volume of poems, Chameleon Hours (University of Chicago Press and House of Anansi Press, 2008), was featured on “Poetry Daily” and in the Washington Post's “Poet's Choice” column, and won the Canadian Authors Association Poetry Award. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The New Yorker, The New Republic, Slate, Southwest Review, PN Review, and elsewhere.Search for more papers by this author ELISE PARTRIDGE, ELISE PARTRIDGE Second volume of poems, Chameleon Hours (University of Chicago Press and House of Anansi Press, 2008), was featured on “Poetry Daily” and in the Washington Post's “Poet's Choice” column, and won the Canadian Authors Association Poetry Award. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The New Yorker, The New Republic, Slate, Southwest Review, PN Review, and elsewhere.Search for more papers by this author First published: 08 December 2009 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9736.2010.00585.xCitations: 1AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article.Citing Literature Volume98, Issue1January 2010Pages 94-95 RelatedInformation

Terms of Dis appropriation: Disability, Diaspora and Dionne Brand's What We All Long For

The article brings together the minority discourses of disability and diaspora. Their shared spaces, histories and narratives—although not always welcome—warrant greater examination. Various moments of diaspora discourse are visited (from Stuart Hall, Robin Cohen, and others) to illustrate how disappropriation of pejorative representations and terms of disability complicate and create theoretical reconsiderations for disabled/diasporic thought in contexts of race, gender, class, trauma, and performance. Although language itself often creates inadequacies through its own terms—especially in the context of expressing inexpressible atrocities—can words accommodate expression without relying on the worn out prosthetics of disability for cachet? The article also explores the treatment of madness and the limp in Canadian author Dionne Brand's transitional text What We All Long For (2005), where diaspora appears in marked terms, connected to the mind and body—informing and troubling characters and experiences....

Swine Flu (H1N1/09)

The most recent epidemiological weekly reports from the Robert Koch Institute show that the swine flu epidemic is now spreading with increasing speed in Germany too. The number of new cases in the country is more than doubling every week—in some states (Lander) it is even faster. This has become clear not just from the statutory notification data, but also from the data emanating from the Sentinel system run by the Working Group on Influenza (Arbeitsgruppe Influenza). The following facts are particularly notable: First, the influenza activity is beginning earlier than we are used to seeing with seasonal flu. Second, in the laboratory-confirmed cases the patients are infected almost exclusively with the novel influenza A (H1N1), not with seasonal influenza strains. Third, in by far the larger number of cases now, infection is autochthonous. In addition, the numbers of patients requiring hospitalization and who have a severe illness ending in death are also increasing. This development indicates the start of a qualitative change in the course of the epidemic in Germany, just as was seen much earlier in other countries, such as the USA, the UK, and France. The article by Winzer et al. is the first report on retrospectively evaluated data from a large clinical cohort of patients infected with the novel influenza A (H1N1) in Germany, starting from the beginning of the pandemic. The authors give an exemplary description of the beginning and course of the first, non-seasonal months of the epidemic, in which the infection was reported first in travelers from South and North America, then in people returning from holidays in Spain. They also describe the implementation and success of rigorous containment measures, including in the initial phase, especially in Dusseldorf, inpatient admission under quarantine conditions. In addition to epidemiological data, comprehensive information about the manifestation, symptoms, laboratory test parameters, course, and treatment were obtained. Many infected individuals remained without symptoms, and most of those who became ill became only mildly so. No cases of severe disease requiring intensive care were observed. A publication by Kumar et al. (1) gives a very different picture. This gives the results of a multicenter observational study of a Canadian cohort over the same time period. Those affected were primarily young, female, and of native ethnicity (Indian, Eskimo), without serious underlying disease. A history of lung disease and smoking and clinical findings of hypertension, diabetes, and obesity were the main comorbidities. About one-third of the 168 patients who were critically ill and in intensive care required special ventilation regimens, in some cases even extracorporeal membrane oxygenation; 49 (17.3%) died. Of 50 children, 4 died (8%). A substantial number of patients suffered bacterial complications, usually due to S. aureus or S. pneumoniae. Compared to seasonal flu, notable findings were gastrointestinal symptoms, dyspnea, and purulent sputum. The Canadian authors particularly emphasized the medical-logistical and social-ethical implications: even before the normal flu season, the intensive care facilities were nearly completely taken up by patients infected with the novel influenza A (H1N1). An increased wave of infections such as one might expect at this time of year would—or indeed will—pose a challenge to the (limited) high-tech intensive care facilities in our healthcare system too, and one such as it has never seen before. So far Germany has succeeded, by a variety of hygiene measures, to keep the wave of the epidemic fairly “flat.” The aim of these efforts was to keep a lid on any epidemic/pandemic until a vaccine was available. The article in this issue by Mikolajczyk et al. on the modelling of infectious diseases attempts to explain the principles upon which calculations are made about the courses of epidemics. The contribution does not contain any specific prediction about the novel influenza A (H1N1), but the basic principles of course apply to any influenza epidemic.

Editorial

Editorial

Yann Martel's Life of Pi and Poe's Pym (and “Berenice”)

T races of Poe’s Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838) in other literary texts are not hard to discover. Jules Verne’s Le Sphinx des glaces (1897), Charles Romyn Dake’s A Strange Discovery (1899), and H. P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness (1936) are all sequels to Pym. In Henry James’s Golden Bowl (1904), Prince Amerigo recalls the conclusion of Poe’s narrative. And while Melville does not so specifically acknowledge the influence of Pym on Moby-Dick (1851), most informed readers are now comfortable with that assumption. Following in latter-day succession, the Canadian author Yann Martel (born in Salamanca, Spain) has acknowledged, in a limited way, the influence of Pym on his successful 2001 novel Life of Pi, but the full extent of that influence has not been recognized. This essay aims at establishing the homage-style presence of Pym throughout Martel’s novel, which emerges as a kind of palimpsest text: Pym is recurrently visible beneath its surface. Martel’s novel is about a sixteen-year-old Indian boy named Pi who survives the sinking of a cargo ship (with zoo animals aboard) on a lifeboat— in the company, at first, of a spotted hyena, a zebra, an orang-utan, and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. But after the hyena has eaten the orang-utan and the zebra, and the tiger has eaten the hyena, Pi and Richard Parker are the sole occupants of the lifeboat, left to drift for over seven months in the Pacific. (Pi’s ex-zoo-owner father and his mother and brother went down with the cargo ship.) This narrative was the deserving winner of the prestigious Man Booker Prize in 2002, and the resultant publicity was swiftly accompanied by a plagiarism controversy. In the last paragraph of his “Author’s Note,” Martel affirms of his novel, “As for the spark of life, I owe it to Mr. Moacyr Scliar” [Life of Pi (Edinburgh: Canongate Books Ltd., 2003), xiv]. The Brazilian novelist’s Max e os Felinos (1981, published in English as Max and the Cats in 1990) is about a Jewish-German refugee who crosses the Atlantic in a boat shared with a jaguar. Martel claims not to have read Scliar’s novel before writing Life of Pi, but he had read at least one review of it. The most important source of Life of Pi—Poe’s Pym—is not mentioned in the “Author’s Note” or (in any direct way) in the novel of which the note is a part. My

"Here the country is uncertain": Canadian Incarcerated Authors Trans-scribing Prison

Drawing on recent life writing by incarcerated Canadian authors, this paper examines how imprisoned writers translate the largely unimaginable physical and social space of the prison to non-imprisoned readers. While some prison texts suggest that, as Michael Hardt puts it, "Prison is our society in its most realized form," others insist on the prison as an inalienable space, a place of radical difference.