Robert Kroetsch: Essayist, Novelist, Poet brings together an international cast of critics, scholars, and writers to examine, re-examine, and honour the celebrated author's immense significance in the twenty-first century, and what it means to be Canadian and part of the country's literary landscape. Original essays by Dennis Cooley, Phil Hall, Nicole Markotic, Aritha van Herk, and Rudy Wiebe, among others. The author of nine novels, thirteen books of poetry, and seven non-fiction volumes, Robert Kroetsch (1927-2011) was a major figure in the development and history of literature in Canada. He won the Governor General's Award for Fiction for The Studhorse Man (1969) and was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for Poetry for The Hornbooks of Rita K. (2001). He received honorary degrees from the University of Winnipeg (1983) and the University of Alberta (1997), and was made an Officer of the Order of Canada (2004). Robert Kroetsch stands as a seminal figure in the Canadian literary landscape. In his early fiction he introduced postmodern techniques into the mainstream of Canadian fiction. He then moved on to writing poetry while still writing fiction, and created a new vision for poets across the country, defining the nature of the poetic experience by searching out the roots of his place in the Canadian landscape. Robert Kroetsch: Essayist, Novelist, Poet is a timely reminder of the immense significance that Kroetsch holds in the twenty-first-century understanding of what it means to be Canadian and part of the country's literary landscape. This book is published in English. - Robert Kroetsch (1927-2011) est une figure majeure de l'histoire et du developpement de la litterature au Canada. Son roman intitule The Studhorse Man (1969) lui a permis de remporter le Prix litteraire du Gouverneur general dans la categorie roman et nouvelles ; par ailleurs, son recueil de poesie, intitule The Hornbooks of Rita K. (2001), a figure sur la liste des finalistes du Prix litteraire du Gouverneur general dans la categorie poesie. De plus, il s'est vu decerner un doctorat honoris causa par deux universites canadiennes, l'Universite de Winnipeg (1983) et l'Universite de l'Alberta (1997), et il a ete fait officier de l'Ordre du Canada (2004). Robert Kroetsch est une figure marquante du paysage litteraire canadien. Dans ses premiers ouvrages de fiction, il a introduit des techniques de narration postmodernes dans le courant dominant et jusqu'alors plutot conventionnel de la fiction canadienne. Il a ensuite entrepris d'ecrire de la poesie tout en poursuivant son oeuvre romanesque. Ce faisant, il a su creer une nouvelle vision pour les poetes canadiens ; il a, entre autres, defini la nature de l'experience poetique en se questionnant sur le sens de l'identite canadienne et sur la place qu'il occupait dans le paysage litteraire canadien. L'ouvrage intitule Robert Kroetsch : romancier, poete et essayiste constitue un rappel opportun de l'importance considerable de cet auteur majeur, qui nous a permis de mieux comprendre ce que cela signifiait d'etre Canadien au XXIe siecle et d'appartenir au paysage litteraire canadien. Ce livre est publie en anglais.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the worldwide impact of postmodernism on the fields of cultural production and the social sciences over the last quarter century - even if the concept has been understood in various, even contradictory, ways. An interest in postmodernism and postmodernity has been especially strong in Canada, in part thanks to the country's non-monolithic approach to history and its multicultural understanding of nationalism, which seems to align with the decentralized, plural, and open-ended pursuit of truth as a multiple possibility as outlined by Jean-Francois Lyotard. In fact, long before Lyotard published his influential work "The Postmodern Condition in 1979", Canadian writers and critics were employing the term to describe a new kind of writing. "RE: Reading the Postmodern" marks a first cautious step toward a history of Canadian postmodernism, exploring the development of the idea of the postmodern and debates about its meaning and its applicability to various genres of Canadian writing, and charting its decline in recent years as a favoured critical trope.