Literature in the Digital Age

Working in French-Canadian literary criticism at Waterloo, I was delighted to discover in York University’s Archives a small treasure trove letters exchanged between Gabrielle Roy and Margaret Laurence, two Manitobans who became giants of French and English Canadian literature respectively. Most letters had never seen the light of day. A few had been published in different journals. I put the collection together with an introduction, explanatory notes and bibliography and published Intimate Strangers: The Letters of Margaret Laurence and Gabrielle Roy with the University of Manitoba Press.

I am currently editing a collection of essays on the topic, “Why Read Literature in the Digital Age?” Scholars, librarians, writers and graduate students are contributing to the volume in an attempt to articulate the importance of reading literature in an era where serous reading seems to be on the decline and the importance of literature is not clearly understood.