Canadian Literatures

'Canadian literatures' in the plural reflects controversial debates about Canada's national identity and its qualification as postcolonial. The First Nations and Inuit most obviously qualify as post-colonial, as Native cultures today have been shaped by both Western and indigenous cultural traditions. Yet it is Native writers who object to the term post-colonial because they resist the implication that European colonization marks the beginnings of Canadian history. French Canadians also claim post-colonial status. Ever since the French defeat against Britain in 1763, Quebec has been struggling for cultural survival in a predominantly English-speaking North American environment. Quebec nationalism arises from the French Canadian claim to being one of the two 'founding nations'. Successive ethnic groups and visible minorities have similarly identified their relations to English Canada as internal colonialism. Such structural inequalities, however, exist at the same time as Canada as a nation grapples with its postcolonial status towards Great Britain as well as its neo-colonial relation towards the United States. This volume introduces the complexities of Canada's postcolonial situation and traces the historical sources of Canada's multicultural present.