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Mavis Gallant has been a leading literary figure in Canada since her first short story, published in 1951, and has grown to be considered internationally as a modern master of the genre. Her writing is nuanced, sensitive, gifted, deep and concise. She leaves everything open for the hidden potential that can always be discovered. Times change; society, history, politics may develop out of recognition. Cultures metamorphose. Literary landscapes and theories are renewed. But the classics of our time stay where they are, pillars of that which is solidly about us. Mavis Gallantâs work is of that calibre: her writing will remain interesting and relevant no matter what else happens.
This book is an exploration of what Gallantâs readers are thinking now: where they place her in the panorama of literature and what meaning she has for them now. Scholars continue to probe into the stories, their characters, the capsules of history they present, and continue to find them challenging. As with Shakespeare, no amount of scrutiny will yield the final answer. That is how complex Gallantâs writing is. Especially now, when the positioning of her characters is a more prominent condition in general, we need to review Gallantâs artistic insights.
As Francine Prose says in Harperâs Magazine: Gallantâs cast of characters are a âmotley assortment of refugees, fugitives, and travelersâ and âdisplaced persons scrambling on the margins of a society they will never belong to.â This is the modern condition. As with other great writers, Gallant shows herself to be prophetic in cutting down to the roots of the sensibility of our era. We are reading her work, and we are thinking about it and talking about it. This book is part of that large conversation.
Contributors are: Neil Besner, Di Brandt, Nicole Côté, John Lent, Gerald Lynch, Maria Noëlle Ng, Peter Stevens, Simone Vauthier, Per Winther.
This book is an exploration of what Gallantâs readers are thinking now: where they place her in the panorama of literature and what meaning she has for them now. Scholars continue to probe into the stories, their characters, the capsules of history they present, and continue to find them challenging. As with Shakespeare, no amount of scrutiny will yield the final answer. That is how complex Gallantâs writing is. Especially now, when the positioning of her characters is a more prominent condition in general, we need to review Gallantâs artistic insights.
As Francine Prose says in Harperâs Magazine: Gallantâs cast of characters are a âmotley assortment of refugees, fugitives, and travelersâ and âdisplaced persons scrambling on the margins of a society they will never belong to.â This is the modern condition. As with other great writers, Gallant shows herself to be prophetic in cutting down to the roots of the sensibility of our era. We are reading her work, and we are thinking about it and talking about it. This book is part of that large conversation.
Contributors are: Neil Besner, Di Brandt, Nicole Côté, John Lent, Gerald Lynch, Maria Noëlle Ng, Peter Stevens, Simone Vauthier, Per Winther.
KRISTJANA GUNNARS is the author of several books of prose fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, and scholarly articles. She has been awarded the McNally Robinson fiction prize for The Prowler; the George Bugnett fiction prize for The Rose Garden; the Stephan G. Stephansson poetry prize for Exiles Among You; and she has been nominated for the Books in Canada first novel award for The Prowler and the Governor Generalâs Award for Zero Hour. She is the editor of Crossing the River: Essays in Honour of Margaret Laurence. Her latest book is a collection of essays, Stranger at the Door: Writers and the Writing Act (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2004), and a work of fiction, Any Day But This (Red Deer Press, 2004). She is Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Alberta.
Preface and Acknowledgements
An Intangible Cure for Death by Homesickness:
Gerald LYNCH: Mavis Gallantâs Canadian Short-Story Cycle âLinnet Muirâ
Di BRANDT: Fascists, Mothers and Provisional Others in Mavis Gallantâs The Pegnitz Junction
John LENT: Transitory Closure in Mavis Gallantâs In Transit: A Writerâs View of the Transition from Modern
to Postmodern Poetics in Short Fiction.
Peter STEVENS: An âIâ for an Evanescent Eye: The Personal and the Private â Autobiography, Essay and Story
Maria NOÃLLENG: Women Out of Fleeting Place: Hotel Living in Mavis Gallantâs Short Stories
Nicole CÃTÃ: Mavis Gallantâs Shifting Poetics of Exile: The Ironic and the Oneiric in Two Early Short Stories.
Per WINTHER: The Volatile Eye of the Beholder: Voice, Epiphany and Grace in the Short Fiction of Mavis Gallant
Neil BESNER: Re-Reading âThe Moslem Wifeâ: Fugitive Irony in the Light of Imagination
Simone VAUTHIER: Framing the Passing Recalcitrance of âThe Wedding Ringâ
Notes on Contributors
An Intangible Cure for Death by Homesickness:
Gerald LYNCH: Mavis Gallantâs Canadian Short-Story Cycle âLinnet Muirâ
Di BRANDT: Fascists, Mothers and Provisional Others in Mavis Gallantâs The Pegnitz Junction
John LENT: Transitory Closure in Mavis Gallantâs In Transit: A Writerâs View of the Transition from Modern
to Postmodern Poetics in Short Fiction.
Peter STEVENS: An âIâ for an Evanescent Eye: The Personal and the Private â Autobiography, Essay and Story
Maria NOÃLLENG: Women Out of Fleeting Place: Hotel Living in Mavis Gallantâs Short Stories
Nicole CÃTÃ: Mavis Gallantâs Shifting Poetics of Exile: The Ironic and the Oneiric in Two Early Short Stories.
Per WINTHER: The Volatile Eye of the Beholder: Voice, Epiphany and Grace in the Short Fiction of Mavis Gallant
Neil BESNER: Re-Reading âThe Moslem Wifeâ: Fugitive Irony in the Light of Imagination
Simone VAUTHIER: Framing the Passing Recalcitrance of âThe Wedding Ringâ
Notes on Contributors