Canadian Cultural Exchange / Échanges culturels au Canada

``This anthology ... is a broad-ranging and inclusive collection of essays examining the ways in which Canadian literary productions are created at the intersections of identities and language.... Moving translation away from the restricted space of French-English bilingualism is one of the major achievements of this volume. It begins a much-needed discussion of the interrelations between translation and multiculturalism--two zones of Canadian policy and experience which have been maintained in artificially separate frames.... A lively introduction traces out a network of connections between the many varieties of literary identities and languages represented in the book--including essays on First Nations, Latin American, Franco-Ontarian, and Afro-Canadian authors. The book's editors avoid defining their topics by identity, however, choosing instead to divide the essays into five thematically defined sections--the first section with a more historical perspective, the second on cultural appropriation, the third on the transcultural body, the fourth on `reconfiguring the solitudes,' and the fifth on future directions. A finely argued Postface completes the collection.... '' The editors of the book practice the language politics that they preach, including articles in French as well as English. For allowing both languages to figure in the book, they thank their publisher, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, for `bucking the parochial trend' in the publishing industry (p. xxii). Indeed, it has become exceedingly rare for publishers to print volumes containing essays in more than one language. This well-edited and timely volume makes a powerful argument: translation and transculturalism are powerful forces working within Canadian literary creation.'' -- Sherry Simon, French Department, Concordia University -- The American Review of Canadian Studies, Spring 2008, 200805
``This collection differs from many studies on literary translation partly because of its corpus, which by no means exhaustive, as Cheadle explains in his introduction, gives a voice to Others who do not always have a literary space to be heard, except in translation. What is particularly interesting is that it opens up the definition of translation to explore, challenge, and reconfigure traditional notions of `the cultural interactions and transactions among ethnicities.''' -- Natasha Dagenais -- Canadian Literature, Number 198, Autumn 2008, 200903