Dionne Brand - An Autobiography of the Autobiography of Reading

Published by

University of Alberta Press

116 Rutherford Library South

11204 89 Avenue NW

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2J4

uap.ualberta.ca

and

Canadian Literature Centre / Centre de littrature canadienne

35 Humanities Centre

University of Alberta

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E5

abclc.ca

Copyright 2020 Dionne Brand

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Title: An autobiography of the autobiography of reading / Dionne Brand.

Names: Brand, Dionne, 1953 author.

Series: Henry Kreisel lecture series.

Description: Series statement: CLC Kreisel lecture series | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190217243 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190217251 | ISBN 9781772125085 (softcover) | ISBN 9781772125139 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781772125146 (Kindle) | ISBN 9781772125153 (PDF)

Subjects: LCSH: Brand, Dionne, 1953 Books and reading. | LCSH: Blacks in literature. | LCSH: Imperialism in literature. | LCSH: Colonies in literature. | LCSH: Racism in literature. | LCSH: Authorship.

Classification: LCC PS8553.R275 Z46 2020 | DDC C811/.54dc23

First edition, rst printing, 2020.

First electronic edition, 2020.

Digital conversion by Transforma Pvt. Ltd.

Copyediting and proofreading by Joanne Muzak.

Cover deisgn by Alan Brownoff.

Cover image: Howardena Pindell, Memory: Future (detail), 19801981, Mixed media on canvas, 210.8 295.9 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Museum purchase with funds donated by Barbara L. and Theodore B. Alfond through the Acorn Foundation in honor of Ann and Graham Gund. Director, Matthew D. Teitelbaum, 2015.2836. Courtesy of the artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York. Used by permission.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written consent. Contact University of Alberta Press for further details.

University of Alberta Press supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with the copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing University of Alberta Press to continue to publish books for every reader.

The Canadian Literature Centre acknowledges the support of Dr. Eric Schloss and the Faculty of Arts for the CLC Kreisel Lecture delivered by Dionne Brand in April 2019 at the University of Alberta.

University of Alberta Press gratefully acknowledges the support received for its publishing program from the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Government of Alberta through the Alberta Media Fund.

FOREWORD

The CLC Kreisel Lecture Series

THE CLC KREISEL LECTURES bring together writers, readers, students, scholars, teachersand with this book, publisher and research centrein an open, inclusive, and critical literary forum. The series has also fostered a beautiful partnership between the CLC and CBC Radio 1 Ideas , which has produced exciting broadcasts that feature the lecturers themselvesincluding Michael Crummey, Heather ONeill, Margaret Atwood, and Lynn Coadyand further probe each lectures themes. Through this partnership, the Kreisel Lectures are able to reach an audience of over a million listeners. The Kreisel Series raises a myriad of issues, at times painful, at times joyful, but always salient and far-reaching: oppression and social justice, cultural identity, place and displacement, the spoils of history, storytelling, censorship, language, reading in a digital age, literary history, and personal memory. The Kreisel Series confronts topics that concern us all within the specificities of our contemporary experience, whatever our differences. In the spirit of free and honest dialogue, it does so with thoughtfulness and depth as well as humour and grace.

These public lectures also set out to honour Professor Henry Kreisels legacy in an annual public forum. Author, University Professor, and Officer of the Order of Canada, Henry Kreisel was born in Vienna into a Jewish family in 1922. He left his homeland for England in 1938 and was interned, in Canada, for eighteen months during the Second World War. After studying at the University of Toronto, he began teaching in 1947 at the University of Alberta, and served as Chair of English from 1961 until 1970. He served as Vice-President (Academic) from 1970 to 1975, and was named University Professor in 1975, the highest scholarly award bestowed on its faculty members by the University of Alberta. Professor Kreisel was an inspiring and beloved teacher who taught generations of students to love literature and was one of the first people to bring the experience of the immigrant to modern Canadian literature. He died in Edmonton in 1991. His works include two novels, The Rich Man (1948) and The Betrayal (1964), and a collection of short stories, The Almost Meeting (1981). His internment diary, alongside critical essays on his writing, appears in Another Country: Writings by and about Henry Kreisel (1985).

The generosity of Professor Kreisels teaching at the University of Alberta profoundly inspires the CLC in its public outreach, research pursuits, and continued commitment to the ever-growing richness, complexity, and diversity of Canadas writings. The Centre embraces Henry Kreisels pioneering focus on the knowledge of ones own literatures. It is in his memory that we seek to foster a better understanding of a difficult world, which literature can help us reimagine and even transform.

The Canadian Literature Centre was established in 2006, thanks to the leadership gift of the noted Edmontonian bibliophile, Dr. Eric Schloss.

MARIE CARRIRE

Director, Canadian Literature Centre

Edmonton, May 2019

LIMINAIRE

La Collection des Confrences Kreisel du CLC

LES CONFRENCES KREISEL DU CLC rassemblent crivains et crivaines, lecteurs et lectrices, tudiants et tudiantes, chercheurs et chercheuses, enseignants et enseignantesditeur et centre de recherche grce ce livredans un forum littraire ouvert, inclusif et critique. La collection entretient aussi un magnifique partenariat entre le CLC et CBC Radio 1 Ideas dont les radiodiffusions mettent en vedette les confrenciers et confrenciresy compris Michael Crummey, Heather ONeill, Margaret Atwood et Lynn Coadyinterrogeant de plus prs les thmes de leur confrence pour un public de plus dun million. La Collection Kreisel met en valeur de nombreuses problmatiques, parfois douloureuses, parfois joyeuses, or toujours saillantes et considrables: oppression et justice sociale, identit culturelle, lieu et dplacement, dpouilles de lhistoire, narration, censure, langage, lecture lre numrique, histoire littraire et mmoire personnelle. La Collection Kreisel saffronte aux questions qui nous concernent tous et toutes selon les spcificits de notre vcu contemporain, peu importent nos diffrences. Dans une intention de dialogue libre et honnte, elle se produit dans lardeur et la profondeur intellectuelles ainsi que lhumour et llgance.

Ces confrences publiques et annuelles se consacrent perptuer la mmoire du Professeur Henry Kreisel. Auteur, professeur universitaire et Officier de lOrdre du Canada, Henry Kreisel est n Vienne dune famille juive en 1922. En 1938, il a quitt son pays natal pour lAngleterre et a t intern pendant dix-huit mois, au Canada, lors de la Deuxime Guerre mondiale. Aprs ses tudes lUniversit de Toronto, il devint professeur lUniversit de lAlberta en 1947, et partir de 1961 jusqu 1970, il a dirig le Dpartement danglais. De 1970 1975, il a t vice-recteur (universitaire), et a t nomm professeur hors rang en 1975, la plus haute distinction scientifique dcerne par lUniversit de lAlberta un membre de son professorat. Professeur ador, il a transmis lamour de la littrature plusieurs gnrations dtudiants, et il a t parmi les premiers crivains modernes du Canada aborder lexprience immigrante. Il est dcd Edmonton en 1991. Son uvre comprend les romans, The Rich Man (1948) et The Betrayal (1964), et un recueil de nouvelles intitul The Almost Meeting (1981). Son journal dinternement, accompagn darticles critiques sur ses crits, parat dans Another Country: Writings by and about Henry Kreisel (1985).