What makes a Canadian author?
August 4, 2009 by Steven W. Beattie · 3 Comments
Is it place of birth? Place of current residence? The fact that so-and-so had dinner at a truck stop on the Canada-U.S. border once in 1963?
The National Post‘s Afterword blog is pointing out that all those people (including yr. humble correspondent) who assumed that there were no Canadians on this year’s Man Booker longlist were wrong. One of the 13 nominees, Ed O’Loughlin, author of Not Untrue & Not Unkind, “was born in Toronto and spent his early years in Edmonton.” In the Afterword’s interview with O’Loughlin, the author says that his family left Toronto when he “was only a few weeks or months old,” moving to Alberta, where they decamped when he was around six years old (O’Loughlin himself appears fuzzy on the exact date). They moved to Manchester, then to Ireland. O’Loughlin now lives in Dublin. But, for the purposes of national pride where important literary prizes are concerned, he’s as Canadian as poutine.
But, hang on a titch: we’re also pleased to call Rawi Hage a Canadian because he currently resides in Montreal. But, Hage was born in Lebanon. So, by the Afterword’s rationale, if O’Loughlin is Canadian, then Hage is Lebanese. Mavis Gallant is Canadian because she was born here, even though she’s lived in Paris for the last 50 years. Saul Bellow was born in Lachine, Quebec, so I guess he’s Canadian, as is Brian Moore, whom many people would consider Irish, but is published by the New Canadian Library because he lived in Canada when he wrote novels like The Luck of Ginger Coffey and Black Robe. Ernest Hemingway wrote for the Toronto Star, so why not call him Canadian too? And while we’re at it, why not adopt Martin Amis, who is currently teaching at the Humber School for Writers?
What makes an author Canadian? Is it a simple matter of where they were born? Or must they have resided in the country for a significant period of time before we are allowed to claim them as one of our own? (Malcolm Lowry, who was born in England, spent several years in British Columbia, but it still seems a bit of a stretch to call him a Canadian author.) Does it require citizenship, or a passport? Or, as I’m more apt to suspect, does one’s Canadianness come and go depending upon the exigencies of international literary prize nominations?
Eek. This silly controversy seems to raise its head whenever the fractious community of literary critics has too much time on its collective hands.
Surely — literary prize criteria notwithstanding — a writer’s nationality is up to the writer to decide. Does Ed O’Loughlin consider himself Canadian (or more unlikely, Torontonian)? Has anyone asked him? I’d guess Hage considers himself Canadian, or perhaps Lebanese-Canadian, but again, would respect his right to determine this for himself.
It’s my view that rather than fixate on writers’ citizenship or countries of birth, it makes far more sense to focus on the character of their work. Someone who writes about a place can be considered affiliated with that place by virtue of their preoccupation with it. Certainly this is what I’ve done in the Imagining Toronto book, which is filled with references to works by writers who are neither Torontonian by birth or necessarily even long residence, but whose work (or some of it) has described the city aptly. Hemingway, incidentally, fits in this category, as does Robertson Davies, who lived in Toronto for many years but probably secretly wished to be considered English or Welsh. Other writers, like Rohinton Mistry — who the Times of London famously referred to as “The Indian writer … currently living in Toronto” — don’t come into play because Toronto (sadly) almost never appears in their work.
Good thing we’re not talking about Presidential eligibility, huh?!
For the purposes of prizes, check the rules. For the Booker citizenship must be of the commonwealth, Ireland or Zimbabwe. Brian Moore became a Canadian citizen while he lived in Canada and has never revoked that citizenship so regardless of where he lives, he’s a Canadian. Same is true for Mavis Gallant.
Provincial prizes do have rules about the length of time a person has lived in the province. Same is true for provincial orders, for example the Order of BC.
So if O’L has not changed his citizenship, he’s Canadian. If he has become an Irish citizen, he still qualifies for the Booker
How did I miss this? Anyway, yes he is definitely Canadian. Whether he’s a Canadian writer or not is the question. I don’t necessarily think so, but that wasn’t really the point. I’d call him a British writer who happened to be born in Canada. His ties to the country are fairly strong, though. Really, this is the most Canadian discussion there is. We ignore people while they’re here, love them when they make it somewhere else, and hate them when they leave permanently.