The Oxford Book of Stories by Canadian Women in English

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is the
author of several books, including The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese
Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret Laurence: T

This marvelous compendium of 50 stories by Canadian women writers could
supply bedtime reading for years to come. And very good reading it
proves to be. Canadian women writers excel in the short-story genre.
Some of the better-known contributors come instantly to mind, such as
Margaret Laurence, Carol Shields, Margaret Atwood, Jane Urquhart, and
Alice Munro. Stories by writers such as Catharine Parr Traill, Pauline
Johnson, Sara Jeannette Duncan, L.M. Montgomery, Ethel Wilson, and P.K.
Page are equally skilful and as relevant to contemporary readers as the
works of Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and Charles Dickens. Human nature is
fairly constant, contemporary mores notwithstanding.

Once old favorites have been enjoyed, readers could explore
lesser-known Canadian women writers such as Helen Weinzweig, Joan Clark,
Cynthia Flood, Diane Schoemperlen, and Shree Ghatage. After savoring
titles long familiar to me, I dipped into Ghatage’s “Deafness Comes
to Me,” a tragic tale of a deaf woman driven mad by solitude,
loneliness, and confusion. Powerful writing.

Rosemary Sullivan, a professor of English at the University of Toronto,
has published two collections of poetry, and biographies of Margaret
Atwood, Gwendolyn MacEwen, and Elizabeth Smart. Sullivan knows good
writing, enduring writing, and has chosen well.