SOURCE: A review of Gaining Ground: European Critics on Canadian Literature, in Canadian Forum, Vol. LXV, No. 755, March, 1986, p. 38.

In the following review, Lernout praises the essays in Gaining Ground.

As the title of this book indicates, Canadian literature is slowly becoming recognized in Europe. But one of the editors, Reingard Nischik, warns against a too facile optimism. In her article on the history of European interest in CanLit, Nischik quite rightly points out that Canadians seem to lack a clear picture of what is really going on in Europe. In less than 30 pages she gives an account of the CanLit scene in 18 European countries and adds an admirably complete bibliography of European studies on Canadian Literature.

What emerges first in the article is that there has been European interest in Canada for only the past 10 years. This is hardly surprising. Ten years ago, when I was a...