Robert Kroetsch

Robert Kroetsch: Essayist, Novelist, Poet brings together an international cast of critics, scholars, and writers to examine, re-examine, and honour the celebrated author’s immense significance in the twenty-first century, and what it means to be Canadian and part of the country’s literary landscape. Original essays by Dennis Cooley, Phil Hall, Nicole Markoti, Aritha van Herk, and Rudy Wiebe, among others. The author of nine novels, thirteen books of poetry, and seven non-fiction volumes, Robert Kroetsch (1927-2011) was a major figure in the development and history of literature in Canada. He won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction for The Studhorse Man (1969) and was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for Poetry for The Hornbooks of Rita K. (2001). He received honorary degrees from the University of Winnipeg (1983) and the University of Alberta (1997), and was made an Officer of the Order of Canada (2004). Robert Kroetsch stands as a seminal figure in the Canadian literary landscape. In his early fiction he introduced postmodern techniques into the mainstream of Canadian fiction. He then moved on to writing poetry while still writing fiction, and created a new vision for poets across the country, defining the nature of the poetic experience by searching out the roots of his place in the Canadian landscape. Robert Kroetsch: Essayist, Novelist, Poet is a timely reminder of the immense significance that Kroetsch holds in the twenty-first-century understanding of what it means to be Canadian and part of the country’s literary landscape. Published in English.

Robert Kroetsch: Essayist, Novelist, Poet is the latest in the University of Ottawa’s excellent Reappraisals: Canadian Writers series, “the longest-running book series dedicated to the study of Canadian literary subjects,” each volume (now numbering well over thirty and dating back to 1974) derived from an annual Canadian literature symposium sponsored by the English department. Over the years I’ve attended many of these gatherings, spoken at several, and certainly often saw Bob Kroetsch there. A unique and important institution in Canadian writing, one that needs ever to be noted and celebrated.

Professor of English at the University of Ottawa, David Staines has authored and edited more than twenty books, including The Canadian Imagination: Dimensions of a Literary Culture (1977), Beyond the Provinces: Literary Canada at Century’s End (1995),The Worlds of Carol Shields (2014), and The Cambridge Companion to Alice Munro (2016).