num_pages: 320
description: When first published in 1972, Survival was considered the most startling book ever written about Canadian literature. Since then, it has continued to be read and taught, and it continues to shape the way Canadians look at themselves. Distinguished, provocative, and written in effervescent, compulsively readable prose, Survival is simultaneously a book of criticism, a manifesto, and a collection of personal and subversive remarks. Margaret Atwood begins by “What have been the central preoccupations of our poetry and fiction?” Her answer is “survival and victims.”Atwood applies this thesis in twelve brilliant, witty, and impassioned chapters; from Moodie to MacLennan to Blais, from Pratt to Purdy to Gibson, she lights up familiar books in wholly new perspectives.
language: English
title: Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature
titlecomplete: Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature
genres: Literature, Books About Books, Criticism, Theory, Essays, Writing, Canadian Literature, Literary Criticism, Canada, Nonfiction
ratings_count: 897
places: Canada
publisher: McClelland & Stewart