A Meeting of Streams: South Asian Canadian Literature

Front Cover
M. G. Vassanji
TSAR Publications, 1985 - Literary Criticism - 145 pages
At no time in history has there been such a massive movement across geographical, political, and cultural barriers as the one we are witnessing in our own time. The South Asian presence in Canada and the West is a result of this movement. It originates predominantly from the countries of South Asia - India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka - and those of the Caribbean and East and South Africa.

The essays and articles in this volume comprise a concerted and many-sided look at the literature of this group. Several of them are also informative surveys of the important branches of this literature. Altogether they provide the contexts for appreciating it, and understanding it as an esthetic, social, and cultural phenomenon. At the same time they address several fundamental issues, regarding the relationship of this literature both to the traditional (South Asian and Third World) and to mainstream (Canadian and North American) languages, literatures, and themes. They probe the past, appraise the present, and throw a glance at the future.

Contributors include:
Brenda Beck, Frank Birbalsingh, Surjeet kalsey, Nuzrat Yar Khan, Arun Mukherjee, Uma Parameswaran, Stella Sandahl, Rajendra Singh, Suwanda Sugunasiri, Ronald Sutherland and MG Vassanji.

From inside the book

 

Contents

Introduction
1
Remarks on IndoAnglian Literature
27
Reality and Symbolism
33
Copyright

6 other sections not shown

Common terms and phrases

Africa Ajmer Rode alien Asian Canadian literature assimilation Bannerji Bharati Mukherjee British Canada Canadian Ethnic Studies Canadian Fiction Canadian literature Canadian Panjabi Canadian society Canadian Urdu Canadian writers Caribbean characters colonial colour Comparative Canadian Literature context contrast Cowasjee Cowasjee's creative critical Cyril Dabydeen Dabydeen emigration example experience feelings French Ganga groups Hindu idiom images India Indian Indo-Anglian Indo-Canadian Itwaru Komagata Maru Ladoo's language Leitao Lino Leitao literary activity literature in Canada mainstream Michael Ondaatje multicultural myth nazms novel novelists Nude Therapy Pakistan Panjabi Parameswaran perhaps poem poetry political popular culture published Quiet Peasant Ravinder Ravi reader reflect short stories Singh social South Asian Canadian South Asian poet South Asian Review subcontinent Sugunasiri Surjeet Kalsey survival symbolic tell themes Third World tion Toronto South Asian tradition translated Trinidad Uma Parameswaran Urdu Language Urdu literature Urdu writers Urdu-speaking values Vancouver Vassanji's Western woman writing in English written

About the author (1985)

M.G. Vassanji was born in Kenya and raised in Tanzania. Before coming to Canada in 1978, he attended M.I.T., and later was writer in residence at the University of Iowa. Vassanji is the author of four acclaimed novels: The Gunny Sack (1989), which won a regional Commonwealth Prize; No New Land (1991); The Book of Secrets (1994), which won the very first Giller Prize; and Amriika (1999). He was awarded the Harbourfront Festival Prize in 1994 in recognition of his achievement in and contribution to the world of letters, and was in the same year chosen as one of twelve Canadians on Macleans Honour Roll.

Bibliographic information

TitleA Meeting of Streams: South Asian Canadian Literature
EditorM. G. Vassanji
PublisherTSAR Publications, 1985
Original fromthe University of California
DigitizedMar 23, 2010
ISBN0920661009, 9780920661000
Length145 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Literary Criticism / American / Asian American & Pacific Islander
Literary Criticism / Canadian
Literary Criticism / General
Political Science / Colonialism & Post-Colonialism
Social Science / Ethnic Studies / Asian Studies
  
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