Left Column...
Left Column...
Is the long, harsh winters, that keep us indoors and introspective? Is it the expanse of the land, the magnificence of our geography, our rippling rivers, the magical light of the prairies, the stern might of the mountains? Is it the multi-cultureless, the duality of French-English?
Who knows. For whatever reason, Canada produces a lot of very good writers. In fact, compared to our giant neighbors to the south, we produce a veritable plethora of first rate scribes, whose impressive achievements tower over the best America has to offer right now. Dom Delillo? Vastly over-rated. Thomas Pynchon? Which of his books would you read twice? Toni Morrison? If it wasn't for Oprah, who would care? Anne Tyler? Don't make me laugh.
The truth is that America does not have a single first-rate writer right now that is of the literary stature of any of the top Canadian writers.
For the record, the Great Canadian writers (best book):
Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient)
Margaret Atwood (Wilderness Tales)
Alice Munro (Who do you Think you are?)
Jane Urquhart (The Stone Carver)
Leonard Cohen (Beautiful Losers)
Rohan Mistry (A Fine Balance)
Mordecai Richler (Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz)
Margaret Laurence (A Jest of God)
Robertson Davies (Fifth Business)
Guy Vanderhaeghe (The Englishman's Boy)
Carol Shields (Stone Diaries)
Mavis Gallant (Collected Stories)
Best new Canadian writer: Yann Martel, author of "Life of
Pi".
