The Canadian Postmodern: A Study of Contemporary Canadian Fiction

The postmodern novel was a surprisingly and often poorly understood phenomenon of the 1980s and 90s, in which many artists explored issues of how art represents the world. These works are characterized by a certain self-reflexivity, a determination to foreground the process of artistic creation, and the previously often backgrounded role played by the artist. Linda Hutcheon’s groundbreaking exploration of postmodernism in Canadian fiction, first published in 1988, provides a clear and fascinating explanation of this tendency towards self-consciousness and self-parody in many of the novels of this period. Her original choice of a cover design by artist Nigel Scott is a clue to the self-reflexive nature of postmodern art, and is reproduced again in his new edition of Hutcheon’s excellent study.

The Canadian Postmodern examines the theory and practice of postmodernism as seen through both contemporary cultural theory and the writings of Audrey Thomas, Michael Ondaatje, Robert Kroetsch, Margaret Atwood, Timothy Findley, Jack Hodgins, Aritha Van Herk, Leonard Cohen, Susan Swan, Clark Blaise, George Bowering, and others.

Includes a new preface by Aritha van Herk that looks back on Hutcheon’s key contributions to the field of postmodern fiction in Canada - and how this phenomenon looks some twenty years later.

Linda Hutcheon, O.C., is a professor of English and of the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto who has published in the fields of literary theory and criticism, opera, and Canadian Studies. In 2000 she was elected the 117th President of the Modern Language Association, the third Canadian to hold this position, and the first Canadian woman.