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The question for literature scholars is not should we return to Munro’s stories, but how will we read them now? Alice Munro at a press conference in Dublin, in 2009. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)

Re-reading Alice Munro in the light of the secrets she kept and pain she caused

Scholars have an opportunity — if not an obligation — to use our re-readings to reckon with sexual abuse of children and the silence that so often surrounds it.
Alice Munro (left) receives her 1986 Governor General’s Literary Award for English-language fiction from Governor General Jeanne Sauvé in Toronto, 1987. (CP PHOTO/Blaise Edwards)

The Gothic horror of Alice Munro: A reckoning with the darkness behind a feminist icon

An essay by Alice Munro’s daughter about childhood sexual abuse has forced a reckoning with the legacy of the feminist icon and writer acclaimed for her ability to give voice to women’s lives.
While literary texts can nurture deep understandings about racism and power, it’s not enough to provide students with racially and culturally diverse texts. (Rasheeq Mohammad)

How literature teachers can create anti-racist classrooms

When teachers are self-aware of how their identities impact their values, beliefs and experiences, they are better prepared to help students build bridges between their lives and literature.
We need to speak more about how to become the kind of man who can openly show love for others while accepting love from those who care. (Shutterstock)

Rethinking masculinity: Teaching men how to love and be loved

Encouraging men to take the risk of expressing tender feelings for others is part of relying on love as a tool of anti-racist and decolonial education.
Still from ‘I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors,’ the film version of Toronto-born Bernice Eisenstein’s memoir. (National Film Board/YouTube)

Canadian writing about the Holocaust is haunted by the grim past

The past of the Holocaust still haunts the present and calls out to Canadian writers. Their works of poetry and prose are forms of remembrance that command our attention.
Poet Miriam Waddington (left) participated in the rise of modernist Canadian poetry and Helen Weinzweig (right) wrote the classic feminist novel ‘Basic Black with Pearls.’ (John Reeves/ /Image (cropped) courtesy Archives & Special Collections, University of New Brunswick)

Daring reads by the first generation of Canadian Jewish women writers

A rich diversity of Canadian Jewish experience is reflected in the poems of Miriam Waddington and the prose of Adele Wiseman, Fredelle Bruser Maynard, Helen Weinzweig and Shirley Faessler.
Teresa Wong’s ‘Dear Scarlet,’ Jeff Lemire’s ‘Essex County,’ and recently nominated for a 2020 Canadian literary prize, Seth’s ‘Clyde Fans.’ (Arsenal Pulp Press/Penguin Random House/Drawn&Quarterly)

Graphic novels are overlooked by book prizes, but that’s starting to change

Canada’s Scotiabank Giller Prize didn’t shortlist a graphic novel, but are we surprised? The slow but increasing acceptance of graphic novels suggests the glacial pace at which literary canons grow.
‘Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club,’ is an extraordinary debut novel set on Valentine’s Day in St. John’s during a blizzard. (House of Anansi Press)

Megan Gail Coles’s novel teaches us that love means we #BelieveWomen

The novel is timely in light of the fact that, increasingly, readers are invited to consider what responsibilities they need to assume in the face of women’s disclosures about their life stories.

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