150 Years of Canadian Storytelling … and now the Future

No matter what the medium, Canadians have always shone as great storytellers based on our proximity to landscapes and wildlife, our diversity, our friendliness and social roots, and our English/French/Indigenous heritage.

While it’s near impossible to pin down one author that defines each decade since Confederation, here is an attempt to highlight our country’s top storytellers be decade, who now pass on the torch to the next generation of storytellers.

This historical romance, based on meticulous research, traces the last days of New France before its incorporation into Canada. “Writing in the years immediately following Confederation,” writes Cynthia Sugars in a review for Canadian Literature, “William Kirby sought to produce a novel that not only relayed the unique character and antiquity of New France (replete with local folk traditions), but also, as Dennis Duffy has observed, one which explicitly ‘enfold[ed] Quebec’s history within that of Anglophone Canada.’”

An author, naturalist and scientist, Seton was known for his realistic animal stories, often portraying animals as victims of mankind. This collection of animal stories has been translated into at least 15 languages. Later, Seton published The Life Histories of Northern Animals: An Account of the Mammals of Manitoba and The Arctic Prairies: A Canoe Journey of 2000 Miles in Search of the Caribou. Many credit Seton with creating this distinctively Canadian literary genre.

This classic Canadian novel — the first of eight — traces child-heroine Anne’s passage from childhood to adolescence. Anne’s story, in which she’s rescued from an orphanage and wins the hearts of her new family and community, is one that still resonates with readers today. It became an instant bestseller in Canada and the U.S., and has remained in print a century later (in several languages). It was also made into a film (twice) and a play based on the story has been running annually in Charlottetown since 1965.

 

Leacock was considered one of the best-known humorists of his time, and Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town is an amusing portrait of day-to-day life in small-town Canada. In fictional Mariposa (modelled after Orillia, Ont.), he tackles the subjects of business, religion, romance and politics with a sense of humour. “Leacock was Canada’s Mark Twain,” writes John Semley in an article in The Globe and Mail. “He counted Groucho Marx, Jack Benny and F. Scott Fitzgerald amongst his public admirers.”

 

While Callaghan’s writing career spanned decades, he often tackled the topic of spirituality against a backdrop of economic injustice and societal hypocrisy. In this novel, set in Toronto during the Depression, Father Dowling befriends two prostitutes, which raises the eyebrows of his rich parishioners. Such is My Beloved is often considered Callaghan’s best novel and touches on themes that are still relevant today: exploring faith in a harsh world.

 

This novel tells the story of life and death on the Prairies, with a cast of small-town characters that depict the social conventions and hypocrisy of the times. Mitchell’s poetic descriptions of the Prairies and depictions of the Canadian West influenced many writers, and after his death in 1998 the W.O. Mitchell Literary Prize was established to reward those who have acted as a mentor to new writers.

 

Mowat is one of Canada’s most widely read authors, selling more than 17 million copies of his books in 52 languages. People of the Deer was his first book — and one that brought him literary recognition (though its authenticity has been routinely questioned). It’s based upon his travels in the Keewatiin region west of Hudson Bay, where he studied the lives of the Ihalmiut, a once-prosperous population of Inuit who were on the brink of extinction after the ‘white man’ destroyed their way of life. His books drew attention to the plight of the Inuit, as well as environmental issues, and have been credited with bringing about substantive changes of policy in Ottawa.

 

Worth noting, this was also the decade when Mordechai Richler came out with The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1959), about a Jewish Montreal kid who was determined to make it, whatever it took. Richler, a novelist, essayist and social critic, was known for asking uncomfortable questions and taking unpopular positions, and today is considered one of Canada’s greatest writers.

 

This novel is a portrayal of Hagar Shipley, a crotchety 90-year-old woman who is reliving a lifetime of memories and trying to come to terms with her dysfunctional family. Set in the fictional town of Manawaka in Manitoba, it’s considered a composite of women’s lives in small towns on the Prairies and is now required reading in many North American schools and colleges. Laurence, who was active in promoting world peace, was awarded the Order of Canada, as well as honorary degrees by 14 Canadian universities.

 

This beloved author is considered one of the world’s best short-story writers, and in 2013 became the first Canadian to win the Nobel Prize for literature (to add to a slew of other literary awards). Lives of Girls and Women is a short-story collection that describes the female experience, as depicted by character Del Jordan, in a small town in Ontario during the 1940s. “Fluent and deceptively artless on the page, these stories are actually amazingly intricate constructions that move back and forth in time, back and forth between reality and memory, opening out, magically, to disclose the long panoramic vistas in these people’s lives,” writes Michiko Kakutani in a review for The New York Times.

 

Atwood, whose literary work spans decades, is known as one of Canada’s most important contemporary authors, with a writing style that mixes fiction and poetry. It was The Handmaid’s Tale — a chilling dystopian vision of the future — that first won her international and critical success, and went on to win a stack of literary awards. Atwood has continued to write numerous critically acclaimed novels, including The Robber Bride, Alias Grace and The Blind Assassin.

 

King is often described as one of the best contemporary Indigenous writers in North America. Green Grass, Running Water — about the fictional small town of Blossom featuring the trickster Coyote, four time-travelling Indian elders and five Blackfoot Indians — was nominated for the Governor General’s Award, winning the 1994 Canadian Authors Award for fiction. King also represents the Canadian experience with mixed heritage: he’s of Cherokee and Greek/German-American descent.

 

This work of historical fiction, which went on to become a popular mini-series, recounts the trials and tribulations of Black Loyalists who fled New York for Canada during the American Revolutionary War through the story of Aminata Diallo. The novel has been translated into eight languages and sold more than 800,000 copies worldwide. Hill is considered one of the most important contributors to Black culture in Canada.

 

Boyden is of Irish, Scottish and Métis descent, and his work focuses on the experience of First Nations peoples of northern Ontario, exploring the poverty, violence, and drug and alcohol abuse on and off reservation, as well as the damaging influence of residential schools. The Orenda tackles the complicated history of Canada’s birth as a nation — and serves as a wake-up call for modern times. “Now that The Orenda has arrived, it’s hard not to think of Joseph Boyden’s first two novels (Three Day Road and its Scotiabank Giller Prize–winning follow-up, Through Black Spruce) as preludes to this magnificent literary beast,” writes Kamal Al-Solaylee in a review for Quill & Quire.

 

Thien’s novel tells the story of an extended family’s experience throughout Revolutionary China, before, during and after the events of the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989. At the heart of the story are three classically trained musicians, Sparrow, Zhuli and Kai, struggling through the Cultural Revolution in an attempt to remain loyal to themselves and the music they’ve dedicated their lives to. Years later, in present-day Vancouver, Kai’s daughter Marie, sets out to piece together the story of her fractured family and find meaning in the layers of their collective story. Do Not Sat We Have Nothing was the winner of the 2016 Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction and the Scotiabank Giller Prize and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

 

What will stories look like in 2027? 2067? Let’s discuss.