CANADA'S GREATEST STORYTELLERS Decade by decade these lively book talks take us from 1867 all the way up to today. This survey by the "iconic" Editor and Publisher, Douglas Gibson, is very informal and deals with Canada's greatest fiction writers, both English and French. Bursts of music from each decade enliven this look at Canada's storytellers and their times. Douglas Gibson is the author of Stories About Storytellers (2011) and Across Canada by Story (2015).
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Canada's Greatest Storytellers: 2010- the Present
25:44
25:44
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
25:44
This is the final podcast in my series Canada's Greatest Storytellers 1867 to today. But this look at the past decade from 2010 to today is full of interesting authors and questions. Drew Hayden Taylor's book Funny You Don't Look Like One:Observations from a Blue Eyed Ojibway makes it clear that determining who is an Indigenous writer in Canada is …
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Canada's Greatest Storytellers: 2000-2010
29:09
29:09
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
29:09
Alistair MacLeod's long awaited first novel, No Great Mischief, drew me to his Windsor home to grab his manuscript in what he called "a home invasion". It went on to win the IMPAC Award and gain a headline in the local paper in Eigg, Scotland which the MacLeod's left in 1790 to sail for Cape Breton, "EIGG MAN WINS PRIZE". Alan Fry's brave 1970 book…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Canada's Greatest Storytellers: 1990-2000
22:21
22:21
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
22:21
Sadly. this decade marked a time when in Canadian Fiction the Old Guard was dying off. Margaret Laurence died in 1987 and the 1990's saw us lose people named Callaghan, Mitchell and Davies. But names from a new diverse Canada were emerging, like Sri Lanka's Michael Ondaatje, or Mumbai's Rohinton Mistry (or even Chicago's Carol Shields, our first Ca…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Canada's Greatest Storytellers: 1980-1990
26:05
26:05
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
26:05
These were years of steady progress in Canadian writing, with major names like Davies, Laurence, Mitchell, Callaghan and MacLennan still writing, and new authors emerging. The most prominent was Margaret Atwood, who was to establish a huge international presence. Leonard Cohen remained a larger than life character. Yves Beauchemin's Le Matou ( The …
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Canada's Greatest Storytellers: 1970 -1980
22:46
22:46
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
22:46
The 1972 hockey showdown with Russia was a central moment for all Canadians, including the great hockey fan Mordecai Richler, who returned to Montreal after his apprenticeship in England. In French his equivalent was Anne Hebert, a Quebecoise exile in Paris for many years. Unlike Mavis Gallant, she found that living in Paris did not harm her Canadi…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Canada's Greatest Storytellers: 1960-1970
25:17
25:17
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
25:17
The Sixties were years of turmoil. In the U.S.A. Martin Luther King fought for Civil Rights for Blacks and reminded Canadians of their proud role in the Underground Railroad. Canada continued to force residential schools on Indigenous families. Manitoba's Margaret Laurence emerged as English Canada's most popular novelist. In Quebec the arts scene …
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Canada's Greatest Storytellers: 1950 -1960s
24:02
24:02
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
24:02
The 1950's were when Canada prospered, with new TV sets and washing machines filling houses in new suburbs, as immigrants continued to arrive. This was the decade when Glenn Gould's recording of Bach was sent into space, and Lester Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize. At home, John Diefenbaker rose to power, and I acquired a behind-the-scenes story a…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Canada's Greatest Storytellers: 1940 -1950
25:13
25:13
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
25:13
In 1939 Hitler put an end to Canada's Depression when money not available for starving Canadians on relief suddenly became available to buy war supplies. Canada's P.M., Mackenzie King was brilliantly satirised by Frank Scott in the poem W.M.L.K., while Gabrielle Roy's novel, The Tim Flute transformed Quebec writing by taking it into a grimy Montrea…
…
continue reading
The Depression from 1929 to 1939, hit Canada very hard, and we got a good sense of its impact in Barry Broadfoot's oral history, Ten Lost Years, which I edited. I also edited later novels by Morley Callaghan, whose 1937 book, More Joy in Heaven is the great Canadian English book about these hard times. In French, the harsh novel, Trente Arpents/Thi…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Canada's Greatest Storytellers,1920 - 1930
19:47
19:47
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
19:47
The Roaring Twenties saw the rise of the Group of Seven and Canadian Art, while Stephen Leacock became the world's most popular humourist, dividing his life between Orilla, Ontario, and the very Scottish McGill University in Montreal. Meanwhile a truly terrible novel set in Canada, involving a French hero boiling and eating his moccasins, won the P…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Canada's Greatest Storytellers, 1910-1920
21:50
21:50
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
21:50
The First World War cost Canada over 60,000 dead and changed the country. Hugh MacLennan's first novel Barometer Rising (1942) dealt with the Halifax explosion of 1917. His later book Two Solitudes described the conscription crisis in Quebec. The great novels of the decade were by Charles Gordon/Ralph Connor and sold in the millions. In French, the…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Canada's Greatest Storytellers, 1900-1910
21:00
21:00
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
21:00
Emile Nelligan is arguably Quebec's most talented and tragic poet. Lucy Maud Montgomery is the author of Canada's most perennially popular novel, Anne of Green Gables, which has brought millions of tourists to Prince Edward Island.By Douglas Gibson
…
continue reading
This decade includes the Indigenous writer Pauline Johnson and her Brantford schoolmate, Sarah Jeanette Duncan. Duncan was the first woman to write for the Globe and to become a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery before creating the Canadian classic novel,The Imperialist.By Douglas Gibson
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Canada's Greatest Storytellers, 1880-1890
15:01
15:01
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
15:01
The decade of The Last Spike deals with Felicite Anger, who wrote as Laure Conan, the first great Quebecoise story teller, and a look at Louis Riel projects us forward to Margaret Laurence and her treatment of the Metis in The Diviners.By Douglas Gibson
…
continue reading
Canada's Storytellers 1870-1880By Douglas Gibson
…
continue reading
First episode in Canada's Greatest Storytellers 1867 to 2017By Douglas Gibson
…
continue reading