A Trio of Voices: Interviews about American Literary Portraits of Canada with Authors Ben Farmer, Beth Powning, and P.S. Duffy

Abstract

In the wake of the recent US elections, the future of Canadian-American relations is unclear. As part of a larger SSHRC-funded exploration of American fictional portraits of Canada, the following three conversations with writers Ben Farmer, P.S. Duffy, and Beth Powning lay the foundations for a consideration of how Americans perceive and depict their northern neighbours in recently published novels. In particular, all three writers focus their attention on the Atlantic region of Canada, probing the history of the area and reflecting on its implicit and explicit relationship to its southern neighbours, locally and nationally. Yet each one attends to a specific set of concerns and a different moment in history in ways that create a potential rich conversation between and beyond the individual novels and their authors. The interviews are intended to provide primary materials to facilitate further scholarship in this area of study.