Auto/biography in Canada: Critical Directions

M. Wayne Cunningham is a past executive director of the Saskatchewan
Arts Board and the former director of Academic and Career Programs at
East Kootenay Community College.

Auto/biography in Canada: Critical Directions presents 12 essays from 15
authors across a range of multidisciplinary studies at several Canadian
universities. All of the contributors are experts in their respective
fields of study.

The book’s editor, Julie Rak, is the author of Negotiated Memory:
Doukhobor Autobiographical Discourse. Her introductory essay provides an
overview of auto/biography theory and criticism in Canada since the
publication of K.P. Stitch’s seminal work, Reflections: Autobiography
and Canadian Literature (1998). The essays that follow deal with a broad
range of topics, including the Holocaust in Canadian auto/biography,
Grey Owl’s “construction of his aboriginal self,” the
recollections of a Japanese mother “who faced institutionalized racism
during World War II”; the life and times of a Cree woman, the
autobiographical efforts of an autistic individual, non-traditional and
technologically innovative uses of auto/biography, and the trendsetting
gay and lesbian autobiographies of Toller Cranston and Carole Pope.

Aimed at an audience of academics and literary theorists,
Auto/biography in Canada is a well-researched and fascinating
contribution to the evolving field of auto/biographical writing and
theory in Canada.