The Fall And Fall Of Canadian Literature

Michael LaPointe discovers that, after half a century of literary nation-building, Canadian writing still bombs in the classroom. The reason? The belief that it's not good enough.

As Baird’s report found, 30 years later, “there is an attitude within the high school educational system that Canadian literature is substandard and doesn’t merit being taught in schools.” Writing in The New York Times, Douglas Coupland facetiously characterizes the genre: “CanLit is when the Canadian government pays you money to write about life in small towns and/or the immigration experience.” As for its aesthetics, Coupland argues, “one could say that CanLit is the literary equivalent of representational landscape painting, with small forays into waterfowl depiction and still lifes.”