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Articles

Volume 05, Number 2 (1980)

Prairie Mosaic: The Immigrant Novel in the Canadian West

  • Eric Thompson
Submitted
May 22, 2008
Published
1980-06-06

Abstract

The immigrant novel, as a genre of prairie writing, has been either ignored or scantily discussed by critics. Ontario-born writers, such as Ralph Connor, Robert Stead, and Nellie McClung endorsed (consciously or not) a largely Anglo-English ideal for the settlement of the prairies. Newer immigrant writers tended to undermine this English bias; Laura Salverson, Illia Kiriak, and Magdalena Rasheviciite-Eggleston portrayed in their writing the difficulties and prejudices European settlers had to endure in the face of English power and hegemony. The dilemma of identity, which may also be called "The Outsider Mentality," was a thematic concern for many immigrant writers,