Voices of Change: Immigrant Writers Speak Out

Matt Hartman is a freelance editor and cataloguer, running Hartman Cataloguing, Editing and Indexing Services.

Hesse has realized, in this compilation of interviews with 15 immigrant
writers, that the book is as much about the state of Canadian literature
in a multicultural environment as it is about the individual writers
themselves. A corollary to this would be that what writers give to, and
take from, their adopted country is predicated both on the receptivity
of the new homeland and on the special qualities of their “voice”
itself. Canada scores highly on both these requisites, allowing its
immigrant artists to integrate themselves into the fabric of the
literary scene and (as more than one of them testifies) rewarding the
more creative ones with the grants and opportunities necessary for them
to continue. This is, perhaps, more notable in Vancouver (where most of
the writers in the book now live) than it is in Toronto or Montreal.
Perhaps this is because Vancouver has come later to multiculturalism;
the exoticism of the foreign has not worn away, the freshness not grown
thin. There is also the fact that British Columbia’s universities have
been willing and eager to provide a focus (and occasionally a teaching
position) for these writers.

None of the writers are, as yet, Canadian household names, although
some do figure as significant voices in their native countries. Andrew
Busza (from Poland) teaches English at the UBC; Surjeet Kasley (from
India) is active in UBC’s Creating Writing Department; Norbert
Ruebsaat (from Germany) teaches communications at Simon Fraser. The
others include two more East Indians (Sadhu Binning and Ajmer Rodé), a
Czech (Jan Drabek), an Austrian (Henry Kreisel), an Argentine (Alberto
Manguel), two Italians (Dino Minni and Romano Perticarini), a
Gabelan/Angolan/Rhodesian (Eduardo Pinto), a Russian (Elfreida Read),
two Hungarians (Anna and Karl Sandor), and a Hong Kong Chinese (Jim
Wong-Chu). Hesse’s introductory interview with Ronald Hatch of UBC’s
English Department provides a useful overview. Recommended for both
academic and public libraries.