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English Studies at the University Of Toronto Department of English/Faculty of Arts and Science Editor: P. Coles Assistant Editor: M. Perry Winter 2009-2010 Volume 1, Issue 2 Home at Last: The renovations are finished! Winter 2009-10 By Pamela Coles Inside this issue: The English Department is Home At Last 1 finally at home in the Jack- man Humanities Building. Anthony De Sa 1 Three years of extensive Books that Inspire Faculty 2 renovations are coming to a welcome close and the feel- Nick Mount 4 ing is overwhelmingly one of relief. Walking through the Creative Writing Showcase 7 newly painted corridors, Paris Times Eight: Deidre Kelly 7 sitting in one of our spacious meeting rooms, or visiting the Department’s hallways fore water became a scarce Backpack to Briefcase 8 the Graduate student activity and the crashing of sledge- commodity on all floors DOE Corpus 8 room, one might easily for- hammers against tile, wood and no one could have fore- get the challenges of the and drywall made even think- seen that the faces of con- Richard Van Fossen 9 move. The transition from 7 ing a laughable pursuit. For tractors working in the Northrop Frye 10 King’s College Circle, the months, two of the three building would become Department’s former home, elevators in the building were nearly as well known to Support the Department of 11 has not exactly been a encased in plywood, giving students as the faces of fac- English smooth one but the bumps the ride up and down a singu- ulty. Accolades 12 seem to have gradually less- larly post-mortem feel. At Update your Alumni Information 12 ened in size and frequency. one point during the renova- Discussions to move the This past summer, dust filled tions, bathrooms, and there- continued on page 6 The Department of English, Jackman Humanities Building Alumni Spotlight: Anthony De Sa By Pamela Coles ing conversation is as ear- his adoption of fame is a nest as it is entertaining. reluctant one. Self- When I meet him, the Cana- Straight away, he tells me effacement is not a new dian writer Anthony De Sa is that, despite being short- addition to the list of the sitting in his favourite Junc- listed in 2008 for the pres- perceived quintessential tion area café in jeans and a t- tigious Giller Prize, he has attributes of Canadian nov- shirt, quietly working away lingering doubts about the elists. Nor is the persistent on a draft of his second book. legitimacy of his claim to collaboration of pathos and His warmth is immediate and the title of author and that his engagement in our ensu- continued on page 2 Department of English Jackman Humanities Building, 170 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5R 2M8 Page 2 English Studies at The University of Toronto From BOOKS THAT INSPIRE FACULTY, An Exhibition AT THE University of Toronto Libraries, October – December 2009. Anthony De Sa continued from page 1 Catalogue edited by Patricia Bellamy, Maureen Morin & Karen Turko. pleasantry we find in Barnacle As is true for many children of Love a recent innovation in Ca- immigrant parents, De Sa bore Catalogue Designed by Maureen Morin. Copyright © 2009 Univer- nadian fiction. Mordecai the burden of becoming the sity of Toronto Libraries Richler, Margaret Atwood, and embodiment of the iconic immi- more recently, Anne Marie grant dream. In keeping with Gillian Fenwick, Department of much, the thick yellowing English, Trinity College pages, the width of the margins, the quick flow of the story, so Elizabeth and Her that even as a child I German Garden could read it in a day. London: Macmil- lan, 1898. With the copy I now own in my hands, the green My grandparents' cloth covers, the almost house at Lamesley magical first page that I was full of books. have read thousands of Before I could read times, I can recapture that them I loved their feel, their time. It might be far-fetched to smell, the colours of the bind- say that this book shaped my ings, the rough-cut edges, the work researching and teaching way you could actually finger bibliography and book history, the impression of the type. I yet the things I loved about it as learnt to read turning their pages a child, colour, cloth, paper, again and again, the words fix- words, type, motifs, patterns, ing their shape and in time their repetitions, are indeed the fun- meaning in my mind. This was damentals of the study of books one of my favourites. It is not a as physical objects. children's book, not particularly suitable for a child, and no-one I suspect my grandmother's ever read it to me, yet it became copy eventually disintegrated from my enthusiastic use, so it a part of me. I learned to love MacDonald all made steady the ambitions of his “arranged the diary format, the songs of gave me great pleasure a few work of the somewhat alarming life”, as he describes it, his par- the owls and nightingales set out years ago to find this first edi- in musical notation, the lists of tion presentation copy in a used combination before he did. Not ents took it for granted that he the names of roses, the humour book store for only £6. surprisingly, the uniqueness of would one day become a re- and bad temper of the husband, De Sa’s contribution to the ar- spectable professional of the the Man of Wrath, and, just as resting blend lies not in a re- higher wage-earning kind. He fashioning of a Canadian narra- was supposed to become a stu- continued on page 4 tive tradition but in his immi- dent of law or of medicine, not grant roots. He names its a student of English. English source in the opening pages of was, after all, the language one his book. “The Portuguese call strove to speak. It wasn’t con- it saudade: a longing for some- sidered a career choice. thing so indefinite as to be inde- finable.” He never thought he’d be a Department of English, Jackman Humanities Building, 170 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5R 2M8 Page 3 English Studies at The University of Toronto Anthony De Sa continued from page 2 writer. “I still tell people when to be the least of his chal- nantly Anglo cultural and liter- and longing remain dominant I meet them”, he admits “that I lenges. During his first year at ary rights. He smiles when he forces in his work. am a teacher and a writer.” the University of Toronto, his learns that the concern of father, his grandfather, his “passing” was one he unknow- Tentatively titled Carnival of Most successful authors will grandmother and his best Desire, this new novel takes off tell you that if you want to be friend all passed away within from the latent exploration, in a great writer you need to read months of each other. His Barnacle Love, of the ramifica- great writing. Despite growing best friend’s sudden death tions for various Toronto up in a house that was devoid was particularly devastating communities of the brutal of the written word, De Sa has but he recalls feeling wholly rape and murder, in 1977, of always been a reader. From a supported throughout the shoe-shine boy Emanuel young age, books offered a ordeal by administrators and Jacques. Those readers who refuge, a world to escape to professors at the University. found themselves easily caught from the intense, often crazy Ultimately, he says, of that up in the intimate narrative of reality of his family life. Un- darker time, the U of T be- his first project will find them- wittingly then, De Sa began came an extension of home to selves hooked once again by grooming himself for future him. the chiaroscuro revelation of literary success by enrolling in events that transform pro- an undergraduate program at But even home away from tagonist, Antonio Rebelo and the University of Toronto that home could be fraught with a ingly shared with one of his the entire city in which he added critical industry to what familiar sense of alienation. In professors at the time, Linda lives. had always been a labour of an exaggeratedly WASP Eng- Hutcheon. The self-described More information on Anthony love. lish Department, the surname “cultural hybrid” often jokes De Sa stood out amongst the De Sa’s upcoming novel is When I asked him what that taking her husband’s sur- available on the author’s web- McKinnons, the Clarkes and name allowed her to shed some courses, books or professors the Turners who, by dint of site: www.anthonydesa.com he enjoyed most during his of her early anxieties of influ- their heritage, seemed simply ence as a burgeoning Italian- student days he made it em- to be laying claim to what was phatically simple. “I liked them Canadian literary theorist in a naturally, rightfully and al- predominantly Anglo-Canadian all.” As most English students ready theirs. And although he do, he found the required academic environment. De Sa’s identifies the front door of his nominations for the 2008 Giller reading for multiple literature childhood home on Palm- courses both exhilarating and Prize and the 2009 Toronto erston Ave as the threshold Book Award certainly lay to overwhelming. He remembers between his Portuguese life thinking that it was humanly rest any question of his Cana- and his Canadian life, he ad- dian literary pedigree and his For more information on impossible to make it through mits that he relied on his un- worries of “passing” are cer- The Scotiabank Giller Prize, visit: the protracted list for John characteristic blond hair and O’Connor’s course on Cana- tainly a thing of the past but it www.scotiabankgillerprize.ca blue eyes to help him out- becomes evident, as we finally dian Literature.

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