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Literary Criticism Canadian

Writing the Roaming Subject

The Biotext in Canadian Literature

by (author) Joanne Saul

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Oct 2006
Category
Canadian
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780802090126
    Publish Date
    Oct 2006
    List Price
    $71.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442683730
    Publish Date
    Sep 2006
    List Price
    $71.00

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Description

Engaging current debates within the studies of life writing and of the nation-state, Writing the Roaming Subject focuses on a group of Canadian writers who pose questions about cultural difference and national identity while writing about their own lives and their own experiences of displacement. Joanne Saul uses the term 'biotext' to describe the unique form of writing that challenges critical practices regarding both life writing and immigrant and ethnic minority writing by blurring the borders of biography, autobiography, history, fiction and theory, as well as poetry, prose, and visual representation.

In her readings of selected contemporary Canadian biotexts - including Michael Ondaatje's Running in the Family, Daphne Marlatt's Ghost Works, Roy Kiyooka's Mothertalk, and Fred Wah's Diamond Grill - Saul suggests that by crossing generic boundaries, these works illuminate the complex relationships between language, place, and self as they are manifested in textual form. Writing the Roaming Subject explores issues of identity formation, representation, and resistance in Canada and suggests that these are particularly crucial questions during a period of Canadian literary history when so many writers are insisting on new, more diverse cultural performances that resist the pull of the national imaginary.

About the author

Joanne Saul is a professor in the Department of English and Canadian Studies at the University of Toronto.

Joanne Saul's profile page