কানাডীয় সাহিত্য যা বর্তমানে ‘ক্যানলিট’ নামে বহুল পরিচিত তার সবচেয়ে উজ্জ্বল নক্ষত্রটির নাম মার্গারেট অ্যাটউড। তিনি একাধারে কবি, কথাসাহিত্যিক ও প্রাবন্ধিক। লেখক হিসেবে মার্গারেটের এইসব পরিচয়ের বাইরেও সামাজিক জীবনে তাঁর রয়েছে বহুল অভিধা। বিশ্বজুড়ে নন্দিত এই কানাডীয় সাহিত্যিকের প্রথম গ্রন্থ প্রকাশিত হয় ১৯৬১ সালে। সেটি ছিল একটি কাব্যগ্রন্থ। ১৯৬৪ সালে প্রকাশিত দ্বিতীয় কাব্যগ্রন্থের জন্যে ১৯৬৬ সালে সাতাশ বছর বয়সে মার্গারেট কানাডার সর্বোচ্চ সাহিত্য স্বীকৃতি গভর্নর জেনারেল পুরস্কার পান। মোট কুড়িটি কাব্যগ্রন্থের রচয়িতা মার্গারেটের প্রথম উপন্যাস ‘দ্য এডিবিল উওমেন’ প্রকাশিত হয় ১৯৬৯ সালে। কথাসাহিত্য ক্যাটাগরিতে তিনি গভর্নর জেনারেল সাহিত্য পুরস্কারটি লাভ করেন ১৯৮৫ সালে। উপন্যাসটির নাম ছিল ‘দ্য হ্যান্ডমেইড’স টেইল’। আরও পাঁচবার তাঁর রচিত উপন্যাস কথাসাহিত্য ক্যাটাগরিতে গভর্নর জেনারেল সাহিত্য পুরস্কারের সংক্ষিপ্ত তালিকায় অন্তর্ভুক্ত হয়। মোট সতেরটি উপন্যাসের লেখক মার্গারেট আরও দশটি গ্রন্থ রচনা করেছেন যেগুলোকে শর্ট ফিকশান হিসেবে চিহ্নিত করা হয়। এরও বাইরে মার্গারেট রচিত শিশুতোষ গ্রন্থ রয়েছে মোট সাতটি। কিন্তু তারও বাইরে মার্গারেট অ্যাটউড রচনা করেছেন বিরাট সংখ্যক প্রবন্ধগ্রন্থ। সেগুলোর একটির নাম ‘দ্য ক্যানলিট ফুডবুক’। সেটিতে আলোকপাত করতেই বর্তমান রচনার প্রয়াস।
Margaret Atwood’s first book on Canadian literature was published in 1972, Survival. This book made him an unwritten guardian of Canadian literature. Margaret has been sitting in that seat for the last four decades. Why does it seem that all the Canadian writers are satisfied to sit in such a seat? But what Margaret has done is she has held that seat regularly. He has always tried to instill that sense of responsibility in others. And the fruits of all that are ‘Second Words: Selected Critical Prose’ (1972) and ‘Moving Targets: Writing with Intent: 1972-2004’ (2004). These two books are Margaret’s thoughts on other authors and their books. The first book contains fifty and the second book contains fifty-one articles. Sometimes in detail, sometimes in short, those articles have been written. The poets mentioned in the essays are sometimes Margaret’s eldest, sometimes contemporary, Sometimes even the youngest. Margaret’s generosity is the key to keeping this sense of the text alive. That generosity began in 1981, when she was a young woman new to the field of writing. But we are fortunate that Margaret has received hundreds of awards, more than twenty universities at home and abroad, but she has not shied away from that responsibility. In this attempt to evaluate the literature of others, Margaret’s best work is ‘Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing’. This book, published in 2002, is actually a lecture series. This collection of six lectures given at Cambridge University is a shining example of Margaret’s deep understanding and analysis. This book is an outstanding example of how deeply a literary creator can see literature. But even then, today’s book by the current negotiator is called ‘The Canlit Foodbook’. That’s where Margaret’s generosity lies. That generosity began in 1981, when she was a young woman new to the field of writing. But we are fortunate that Margaret has received hundreds of awards, more than twenty universities at home and abroad, but she has not shied away from that responsibility. In this attempt to evaluate the literature of others, Margaret’s best work is ‘Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing’. This book, published in 2002, is actually a lecture series. This collection of six lectures given at Cambridge University is a shining example of Margaret’s deep understanding and analysis. This book is an outstanding example of how deeply a literary creator can see literature. But even then, today’s book by the current negotiator is called ‘The Canlit Foodbook’. That’s where Margaret’s generosity lies. That generosity began in 1981, when she was a young woman new to the field of writing. But we are fortunate that Margaret has received hundreds of awards, more than twenty universities at home and abroad, but she has not shied away from that responsibility. In this attempt to evaluate the literature of others, Margaret’s best work is ‘Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing’. This book, published in 2002, is actually a lecture series. This collection of six lectures given at Cambridge University is a shining example of Margaret’s deep understanding and analysis. This book is an outstanding example of how deeply a literary creator can see literature. But even then, today’s book by the current negotiator is called ‘The Canlit Foodbook’. Margaret has received hundreds of awards, more than twenty honorary degrees from home and abroad, but she has not shied away from that responsibility. In this attempt to evaluate the literature of others, Margaret’s best work is ‘Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing’. This book, published in 2002, is actually a lecture series. This collection of six lectures given at Cambridge University is a shining example of Margaret’s deep understanding and analysis. This book is an outstanding example of how deeply a literary creator can see literature. But even then, today’s book by the current negotiator is called ‘The Canlit Foodbook’. Margaret has received hundreds of awards, more than twenty honorary degrees from home and abroad, but she has not shied away from that responsibility. In this attempt to evaluate the literature of others, Margaret’s best work is ‘Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing’. This book, published in 2002, is actually a lecture series. This collection of six lectures given at Cambridge University is a shining example of Margaret’s deep understanding and analysis. This book is an outstanding example of how deeply a literary creator can see literature. But even then, today’s book by the current negotiator is called ‘The Canlit Foodbook’. A Writer on Writing ‘. This book, published in 2002, is actually a lecture series. This collection of six lectures given at Cambridge University is a shining example of Margaret’s deep understanding and analysis. This book is an outstanding example of how deeply a literary creator can see literature. But even then, today’s book by the current negotiator is called ‘The Canlit Foodbook’. A Writer on Writing ‘. This book, published in 2002, is actually a lecture series. This collection of six lectures given at Cambridge University is a shining example of Margaret’s deep understanding and analysis. This book is an outstanding example of how deeply a literary creator can see literature. But even then, today’s book by the current negotiator is called ‘The Canlit Foodbook’.
And so, the questions that Margaret answered in her 1972 book, Survival, are the main driving force behind Canlitt. The development of Canlit from the answers to those questions. The question is ‘What is there to read in this country?’ Or ‘What is there to write about in this country?’ (M&S Edition, Toronto, 2004, p: 21). The truth is that this is what everyone thought until the 1980s. Before the end of the decade, we got poems like ‘The Pride’. The poet John Newlav (1936-2003) emphatically stated in that poem in the book ‘Back Night Window’ in 1978, ‘We stand alone, / we are no longer lonely / but have roots, / and the rooted words / recur in the mind, mirror, so that / we dwell on nothing else, in nothing else, / touched, repeating them, / at home freely / at last, in amazement. ‘ This writer-poet consciousness has nurtured Canadian literature for the past fifty years,
From Pain to Palette – A Collection of Tasty Literary Fair ‘. The book is no longer available on the market. I know that the copy of the book is not ‘borrowable’ even in the public library of Toronto, my current residence. There is only one copy of that book in the reference branch of this outstanding library of one hundred branches. The rule there is to go to that branch and sit in the library and read the book. Or maybe a xerox copy of the book can be brought to them at their request. Although I came to know about the book three years ago, the ‘Canlit Foodbook’ once fell at the bottom of my reading list due to the pressure of reading other huge amounts. In addition, at the beginning of the lesson on Canadian literature, the desire to work with Margaret Atwood was made, but later the tide turned. The reason I have identified is the lack of overall knowledge of Canadian literature. And that’s why I gradually came to realize that before reading extensively on a particular Canadian poet-writer, my reading would be Canadian. From the beginning of literature to the present, from the Far East to the West. And the funny thing is that Margaret Atwood came to the fore again and again in that text, not with her poems or novels, but with her outstanding essays. Needless to say, Margaret’s essays on Canadian literature, or on Canadian literature in particular, began to create a strange sense of happiness.
Margaret published ‘The Canlit Foodbook’ by compiling the necessary Canlit from there. In a sense, the book can be called an editing book. Some illustrations are used in the book – all by Margaret. Margaret writes in the preface to the 215-page book, which is slightly larger in size than the average book:
The CanLit Foodbook is not exactly a cookbook; on the other hand, it isn’t exactly a cookbook, either. Viewed one way, it’s a civilized literary symposium on the subject of food, containing as it does, a great many extracts selected from Canadian poetry and prose, past, present, and coast-to-coast, on the subject of some of the things people put into their mouth with a view to ingestion. (p. 01)
Among the established Canadian poets and writers who have rescued Margaret are Susanna Modi, EJ Pratt, Sarah Janet Duncan, Lucy Mod Montgomery, Stephen Lake, Earl Barney, Irving Leighton, Alice Monroe, Margaret Lawrence, PK Page, Tim Lee. , Milton Acorn, Marianne Angel, Gwendolyn McEwen, BP Nichel, Mordecai Richler, Robertson Davis, Mavis Gallant, Leonard Cohen, Bill Bisset, Dennis Lee, Michael Ondadji, Phyllis Webb, Guy Venderhage, World In this context, it can be said that we have received such ‘food books’ of eminent writers in the past as well. Shakespeare Foodbook and Dickens Foodbook are two well known books. However, Margaret’s book is no doubt an indicator of a new genre as the foodbook of a country’s literature.
The book is divided into ten chapters in total. Margaret also explains what is given in a chapter. He has rescued a total of 110 Canadian poets and writers. In the works of the established poet-writer, he has put everything he has found in one place on food, cooking, etc. He has also extracted from real cookbooks. The total number of such books is thirty four.
But the reason I like this book is actually different. The reason is the scope of Margaret Atwood’s reading in Canadian literature. Margaret saw in her lifetime a time when Canadian literature was unpopular with Canadians. Five decades ago, if a Canadian writer needed to retrieve from the work of a famous author in his book, he would do so from British or American literature. At that time, no Canadian literary critic felt compelled to write a separate treatise on Canadian literature, on any particular genre. Since then, Canadian literature has reached such a height in the hands of Margaret and her contemporaries that hundreds of high quality books are published in Canada each year. It is no longer possible for a good reader to read only the good books that are published every year.
And this standard of Canadian literature has been achieved because of the large-scale writers like Margaret Atwood who have contributed to the development of their literature as well as the literature of all the people of the country. The ‘Canlit Foodbook’ is a unique example of fellow writers paying homage to literature. It is this reverence of Canada’s leading writers towards other writers that has overwhelmed the present writer. Deep wonder has created deep in the consciousness.
Pauline Johnson, Stephen Lackock, Mazo de la Roach, and Lucy Mode Matgomari are among the most popular literary figures in Canada before Canlitt. But Carol Shields is one of the most famous celebrity writers in contemporary literature. Michael Ondadji has the slightest impression of an immigrant. But it is Margaret Atwood who has drawn Canadian literature to the present with love, affection and care. And that’s why Margaret Atwood is a responsible guardian of Canadian literature. Canadians are delighted to have her in the seat of ‘Queen of Canlit’.
But the happiest thing is that I have been able to own a copy of this rare book. One of the most important books I have ever bought for myself from The Library on Canadian Literature is The Cannell Foodbook.
East York, Canada