The three plays included in this anthology all deal with intercultural issues in Canada with humour, wit and at times, heartbreak. They range from a village idiot in a French Canadian hamlet to arranged marriages to a multiracial relationship that is unhinged once he tells his parents that he is 'living with a white girl'.

The development of literature in Canada with an eye to its multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual nature. From modest colonial beginnings, literature in Canada has arrived at the center stage of world literature. Works by English-Canadian writers -- both established writers such as Margaret Atwood and new talents such as Yann Martel -- make regular appearances on international bestseller lists. French-Canadian literature has also found its own voice in the North American and francophone worlds. "CanLit" has likewise developed into a staple of academic interest, pursued in Canadian Studies programs in Canada and around the world. This volume draws on the expertise of scholars from Canada, Germany, Austria, and France, tracing Canadian literature from the indigenous oral tradition to thedevelopment of English-Canadian and French-Canadian literature since colonial times. Conceiving of Canada as a single but multifaceted culture, it accounts for specific characteristics of English- and French-Canadian literatures,such as the vital role of the short story in English Canada or that of the chanson in French Canada. Yet special attention is also paid to Aboriginal literature and to the pronounced transcultural, ethnically diverse character ofmuch contemporary Canadian literature, thus moving clearly beyond the traditions of the two founding nations. Contributors: Reingard M. Nischik, Eva Gruber, Iain M. Higgins, Guy Lafleche, Dorothee Scholl, Gwendolyn Davies, Tracy Ware, Fritz Peter Kirsch, Julia Breitbach, Lorraine York, Marta Dvorak, Jerry Wasserman, Ursula Mathis-Moser, Doris G. Eibl, Rolf Lohse, Sherrill Grace, Caroline Rosenthal, Martin Kuester, Nicholas Bradley, Anne Nothof, Georgiana Banita, Gilles Dupuis, and Andrea Oberhuber. Reingard M. Nischik is Professor of American Literature at the University of Constance, Germany.

The sound of the wind across a Prairie field, the smell of grass on
the first day of spring, the vocalization of birds in the early morning
woods, the silence of the lake at night interrupted by call of the loon
- these are the shapes and sounds of the Prairie landscape.
Katherine Koller invokes the Prairie setting as a central character in
each of the four plays in Voices of the Land. Serving a
supportive and, at other times, antagonistic role, the landscape acts
upon the characters, driving and intensifying their transformation.

The land and those who live in intimate terms with it are the focus
of Koller's plays. In The Seed Savers, farmers face
pressure to purchase genetically modified seed; a protagonist refuses
to sell untilled land for development in Cowboy Boots and a
Corsage; a dying woman sees a lake as her final resting place in
Abby's Place; and in The Early Worm Club, Millie
realizes a deep sense of belonging to the Alberta parkland and its
birds while searching for her mate. Nature goes beyond mere setting and
backdrop in these plays to effect transformation and resolution on the
characters. Ranging from romantic comedy to drama and from one-act to
full-length, the plays in Voices of the Land show western
Canadians at the point of leaving, returning, and renewing against the
backdrop of their native landscape.

Katherine Koller teaches in the Department of English
and Film Studies at the University of Alberta and continues to write
for radio, stage and screen. Her one-act comedies have been produced
across Canada.