Difference and Identity in Contemporary Anglo-Canadian Fiction

My dissertation is concerned with contemporary (Anglo-)Canadian immigrant fiction and proposes an analytic grid with which it may be appreciated and compared more adequately. As a starting-point serves the general observation that the works of many Canadian immigrant writers are characterised by a focus on their respective home cultures as well as on their Canadian host culture. Following the ground-breaking work of Northrop Frye, Margaret Atwood and David Staines, the categories of ‘there’ and ‘here’ are suggested in order to reflect this double encoding of Canadian immigrant literature. However, ‘here’ and ‘there’ are more than spatial configurations in that they represent a concern with issues of multiculturalism and postcolonialism. Both of which are informed by an emphasis on difference and identity, and difference and identity are also what the narratives of M.G. Vassanji, Neil Bissoondath and Rohinton Mistry are preoccupied with. My study sets out to show two things: On the one hand, it attempts to exemplify the complexity and interrelatedness of ‘there’ and ‘here’ in a representative fashion. Hence in their treatments of difference, M.G. Vassanji, Neil Bissoondath and Rohinton Mistry come up with comparable identity constructions ‘here’ and ‘there’ respectively. On the other hand, special attention is paid to the strategies by which Vassanji, Bissoondath and Mistry construct difference and corroborate their respective understandings of identity.