SOURCE: Clarke, George Elliott. “Harris, Philip, Brand: Three Authors in Search of Literate Criticism.” Journal of Canadian Studies 35, no. 1 (spring 2000): 161-89.

In the following essay, Clarke reviews recent criticism of the works of three Trinidadian-Canadian writers: Brand, Claire Harris, and M. Nourbese Philip; and contends that few critics are willing to engage their works in terms of aesthetic considerations.

For Hardial Bains (1939-1997)

I think that Canadians find it difficult to assess literature by writers of colour because we abhor any suggestion that we may be racist or that racism, I mean Eurocentrism, has always guided our culture. We find this fact embarrassing and we rush to deny its relevance, or we excuse our exclusionist practices by reminding ourselves, incessantly, “at least we are not like the Americans.” With this holiest of mantras, we exorcise our own history of First Nations and African slavery; banishments of First Nations...