had known in his native Mumbai. His novelSuch a
Long Journey(1991) won the Governor General’s
Award for English-Language Fiction and the Tril-
lium Award.A Fine Balance(1995) won numerous
awards, including the Giller Prize. Both books were
short-listed for the Booker Prize.A Fine Balancewas
the first Canadian work to be chosen by the popular
talk-show host Oprah Winfrey for her book club.
Impact The 1990’s were characterized by consoli-
dation of the cultural gains that had been made dur-
ing the previous decades, by an increasing accep-
tance of experimental forms, and by expansion of
the subject matter of Canadian literature. Though
female writers continued to recall past oppression
and to emphasize the need for a sense of personal
identity, they were now moving on to other subjects,
including specific social problems, such as poverty,
or philosophical issues, including the need to define
the national spirit. During the decade, talented new
writers from every province and from other parts of
the world were appearing on the literary scene. At
the end of the decade, it was evident that the reputa-
tion of Canada as the home of great literature would
continue into the twenty-first century.
Further Reading
Gilbert, Paula Ruth, and Roseanne L. Dufault, eds.
Doing Gender: Franco-Canadian Women Writers of the
1990’s.Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson Uni-
versity Press, 2001. A useful volume about an im-
portant group of writers. Bibliography and index.
Kruk, Laurie.The Voice Is the Stor y: Conversations with
Canadian Writers of Short Fiction. Oakville, Ont.:
Mosaic Press, 2003. Revealing discussions with
ten writers, all with achievements in several gen-
res. Biographical notes. Indexed.
Pearlman, Mickey, ed.Canadian Women Writing Fic-
tion. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1993.
Ten essays by American and Canadian scholars,
pointing out their use of such themes as family,
place, memory, and identity. Includes an excel-
lent introduction by the editor.
Schaub, Danielle, ed.Reading Writers Reading: Cana-
dian Authors’ Reflections. Edmonton: University of
Alberta Press, 2006. Comments about books and
reading by twenty-three writers, along with
Schaub’s photographic portraits.
Toye, William, ed.The Concise Oxford Companion to
Canadian Literature. 2d ed. Don Mills, Ont.: Ox-
ford University Press, 1997. Updates earlier refer-
ence works with entries on new writers and recent
publications.
Williamson, Janice, ed.Sounding Differences: Conver-
sations with Seventeen Canadian Women Writers.To-
ronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993. Each
interviewee comments on her craft, on gender
issues, and on her impact on social change. In-
cludes a biographical note on each writer and an
excerpt from her work.
Rosemar y M. Canfield ReismanSee also Audiobooks; Book clubs; Canada and the
United States; Literature in the United States; Mi-
norities in Canada; Mistry, Rohinton; Ondaatje, Mi-
chael; Poetry; Publishing; Theater in Canada. Literature in the United States
Definition Drama, prose, and poetry by American
authors
In this first fully electronic decade of American histor y and
culture, the 1990’s revealed a new sense of energy and
growth in several areas of literature.
Literature in the last decade of the nineteenth cen-
tury was accused of decadence, escapism, and/or ex-
treme aestheticism, reflecting, critics argued, the
world-weariness that came with the end of those tu-
multuous hundred years. The literature of the
1890’s came to be known as the “yellow decade” in
England (through writers like Oscar Wilde and
Bram Stoker), the “decadent decade” in France (in
Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine), and the
“mauve decade” in the United States (a term coined
by Thomas Beer in a 1926 study of the culture sur-
rounding writers like Henry James, Stephen Crane,
and Ambrose Bierce). The 1990’s, by contrast, was a
period of renewed energy and production in Ameri-
can literature. New literary movements flourished,
writers explored different genres and forms, and
whatever end-of-the-century despair that appeared
was soon lost in a rush of new voices.
Some of this energy can be attributed to changes
in the literary marketplace. The 1990’s were the first
electronic decade in American culture, the first full
decade when readers could go online to read books
(on Project Gutenberg, for example) and order
them (from Amazon.com), find out about literary
matters, and even talk to authors. Audiobooks be-520 Literature in the United States The Nineties in America