SOURCE: "Shaping Ethnicity," in Canadian Literature, No. 151, Winter 1996, pp. 171-72.

Below, Iwama criticizes the logic of Selling Illusions.

Neil Bissoondath describes Selling Illusions as his "personal attempt to grapple with" the policy of multiculturalism in Canada. The personal nature of this text is palpable. Complementing Bissoondath's views on multiculturalism are the story of his immigration to Canada from Trinidad, a chat about his family and friends, and a detailed rendering of the "creative process" of his writing. The reader learns Bissoondath's opinions on a constellation of topics surrounding politics and art, including his lengthy rebuttal of certain criticisms of his own art. For the reader concerned with the decontextualized interplay of writer, text, and critic, Selling Illusions is, then, a helpful volume.

But the policy of multiculturalism affects all Canadians, and by also promising "to look at where we are and how we got there," Bissoondath engages in...