Eyes deep with unfathomable histories is a quotation taken from the poem by Pauline Melville
entitled Homeland. This volume was inspired by two areas: the first one was the writings of
Pauline Melville a British novelist a poet and actress with Wapisiana (South American Indian)
ancestry and the second by Canadian magic realism. The majority of the articles in the
collection focus on a variety of aspects of magic realism in contemporary Canadian literature
in English which abounds in texts representative of the mode but some also approach magic
realist texts by British novelists and US playwrights. The authors of the articles come from
Europe and North America and include established scholars such as Jeanne Delbaere-Garant who
has been writing about developments within magic realism in Canada and beyond for almost thirty
years and Hartmut Lutz an authority on Canadian Native literatures as well as promising
young scholars. They approach classics of magic realism suchas novels by Jack Hodgins Robert
Kroetsch and Angela Carter but also more recent texts by Joan Clark Bernard Assiniwi Rachel
A. Quitsualik Thomas King Rawi Hage Margaret Sweatman Lilian Nattel Susanne Swann and Eden
Robinson among others.
