A Literary Tourist’s Fruitless Search for the Canadian Dissident Novel

You are a tourist to Canada in the season of book awards and writers’ festivals.  You have timed it this way.  You are a literary tourist, or a book lover, at least.  The kind of traveller who seeks out immersive cultural experiences.  Wherever you go, you do your homework.  It is a trip to Anglophone Canada, so you have brushed up on your English (which was pretty good to begin with).  You study maps.  You read up on the history, current events, and controversies.  And now you will go deeper.  You are looking for literature in situ.  You will talk with some Canadian readers, meet some Canadian authors, perhaps.  You will ask big questions and really get inside the soul of this country.

For the most part you