Out of Place : The Writings of Robert Kroetsch

From the perspective of current regionalisms and deterritorializations, Out of Place offers a critical reading of the ‘Centennial decade’ in English-Canadian literature as it is reflected in the literary and critical writings of Robert Kroetsch. The aim of this study is twofold. It provides a close reading of the work of a writer who occupies that borderland between postmodernism and postcolonialism that seems to be so typically Canadian. And by drawing a line that links the concepts of territory, language and identity, it searches for an appropriate critical methodology for approaching that place called Canada, its many histories and languages, its myths. Kroetsch’s work reveals the ultimate dismissal of the thematic quest for identity – a quest undertaken by Frye, Atwood, and others in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He, however, asserts the primacy of the notion of place as the starting point of his reflection on the experience of living and writing in Canada today. An interview with Robert Kroetsch closes the book.