Canadian Literature

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“The Moral Bucket List” is an essay by David Brooks first published in the New York Times Op-Ed Section on April 11, 2015. Born in Toronto and raised in New York, Brooks is a prominent cultural journalist, political analyst, and book author. Since 2003, he has written a twice-weekly column for the New York Times, and since 2004, he has been a political analyst for PBS NewsHour. “The Moral Bucket List” is an adapted excerpt... Read The Moral Bucket List Summary

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Barbara Haworth-Attard’s young adult novel Theories of Relativity follows the story of Dylan Wallace, a 16-year-old boy living on the streets of a large city in Canada. Through first-person, present-tense narration, Dylan navigates the dangers and risks of street life and deals with the hardships that accompany the lifestyle. This novel was originally published in Canada in 2003 by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. This study guide follows the First American Edition of the novel, published in... Read Theories of Relativity Summary

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Mary Lawson’s 2016 novel, The Other Side of the Bridge, tells the dual stories of Arthur and Ian, two men separated by a generation but in love with the same woman: Arthur’s wife, Laura.Odd-numbered chapters are told from the point-of-view of Ian Christopherson, the son of a doctor who takes a job on Arthur Dunn’s farm, chiefly to be near Laura Dunn. Even-numbered chapters follow Arthur Dunn. The older of the two Dunn brothers, Arthur... Read The Other Side of the Bridge Summary

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“The Painted Door” is a short story by Sinclair Ross. It was first published in 1938 and later reprinted in The Lamp at Noon and Other Stories by Sinclair Ross in 1988. Ross is known for his fiction (both short stories and novels) depicting life on the Canadian prairies, particularly during the Great Depression. The author was born in 1908 on a homestead near Shellbrook, Saskatchewan, Canada, and lived in various locations across the Canadian... Read The Painted Door Summary

The Penelopiad is a 2005 novella by Margaret Atwood. It is told from the point of view of Penelope, Odysseus’ wife, and her twelve hanged maids. It offers an alternate perspective on the events famously portrayed by Homer in The Odyssey, giving depth to a previously shallow portrait of a faithful wife and her “deceitful” maids. Borrowing from Greek tragedy, Atwood switches narrators between Penelope, now dead and in the underworld, and the hanged maids, who speak... Read The Penelopiad Summary

The Peripheral is a 2014 science-fiction novel by William Gibson. Gibson has been writing science fiction works since the 1970s and is considered one of the founding fathers of the cyberpunk genre. His debut novel, Neuromancer, is one of the genre’s foundational texts and is the only novel to win the Nebula, Hugo, and Philip K. Dick awards. Since then, Gibson has written several bestselling science-fiction trilogies. The Peripheral is the first novel of The... Read The Peripheral Summary

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In The Return of Martin Guerre, Natalie Zemon Davis, historian and professor at Princeton University, reconstructs the sixteenth century legend of Martin Guerre, a man with a wooden leg who arrived to a courthouse in Toulouse just in time to denounce an imposter who had stolen his wife, his family, and his inheritance. Arnaud du Tilh, a clever and persuasive peasant with a somewhat sordid past, had indeed taken Martin’s identity, and he nearly escaped... Read The Return of Martin Guerre Summary

The Rez Sisters by Tomson Highway is a two-act play that was first performed in 1986 at the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto. After being translated into French by Jocelyne Beaulieu, “Les Reines de la réserve” premiered by Théâtre Populaire du Québec in 1993. A version of the play in the Cree language was performed in 2010, and Canadian performances with Indigenous actors have been staged in the 2020s. Highway’s play re-envisions the 1965 play... Read The Rez Sisters Summary