Native Writers and Canadian Writing

Sometimes people are willing to listen only to those voices that confirm the conventions they already know. The unfamiliar makes them fear. Or makes them condescend. Neither fear nor condescension encourages listening. And no one who does not listen learns to hear.

- W.H. New, “Learning to Listen.”

Native Writers and Canadian Writing is a co-publication with Canadian Literature – Canada’s foremost literary journal – of a special double issue which focuses on literature by and about Canada’s Native peoples and contains original articles and poems by both Native and non-Native writers. These not only reflect the growing prominence of contemporary Native writing but also direct the reader to the traditional literature from which it springs and which has been largely misunderstood by the non-Native community – myths, rituals, and songs having been interpreted more often as artistic “curiosities” rather than the masterworks of a different culture.

Essays examining the conventional portrayals of Native people in literature touch on works which range from the eighteenth-century journals of explorer Alexander Mackenzie, to the novels of James Fenimore Cooper, and to early writers in Canada such as historian-humourist Thomas Chandler Haliburton. Studies of Native literature focus on the oral literary traditions of the Haida and Inuit and their transcribers and on modern works by playwright Tomson Highway and authors Lee Maracle and Thomas King, among others. These commentaries illuminate the way in which Native writers view themselves and their disparate worlds, their gifts for pathos, humour, and self-parody, and their search for their own voices and distinct forms of communication.

Viewing Canada’s Native peoples in historical, anthropological, and political contexts, the book exposes prejudices and misconceptions entrenched since colonial days regarding Native societies and their moral, spiritual, and political values – values embodied in their hereditary literature. Just as Native visual art has flourished in recent years, the book records the initiatives now being taken by Native societies to preserve and promote their own cultural identity through the spoken and written word. These include control of their own education, creative writing programs, projects to preserve still extant languages, folklore, songs, and rituals, and the founding of Native publishing houses. Not only are these endeavours valuable contributions to tribal cultures, but they also contribute to the past and ongoing literary heritage of Canada as a nation. Recognition of the place of Native literature as an integral part of the Canadian cultural scene is one of the main goals of Native Writers and Canadian Writing. As W.H. New points out, this collection is “a speaking place ... a series of opportunities to begin listening.”

Native Writers and Canadian Writing has been produced as one of the projects celebrating the 75th anniversary of the University of British Columbia.