Arctic Solitude: Mitiarjuk’s Sanaaq and the Politics of Translation in Inuit Literature
The study of Aboriginal literature often seems to be the most virtuous of decolonizing projects, as it promotes and honours some of the most marginalized voices. Both the call for greater recognition for Inuit writer Salome Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk's novel Sanaaq (1984) and the process whereby it ha...
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
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University of New Brunswick
2010
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| Online Access: | https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/SCL/article/view/18320 |
| Summary: | The study of Aboriginal literature often seems to be the most virtuous of decolonizing projects, as it promotes and honours some of the most marginalized voices. Both the call for greater recognition for Inuit writer Salome Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk's novel Sanaaq (1984) and the process whereby it has been excluded demonstrate the ongoing semi-colonial biases and expectations of literary studies in Canada. Canonizing Indigenous novels risks perpetuating the assimilative history of the Canadian education system in its demands that Indigenous literature appear in only the most familiar (or European) of forms. Anglophone institutions should welcome Mitiarjuk's work into the curriculum – not as evidence of the "maturity" of the Inuit literary tradition, but rather as a text that can expose the ongoing colonialism of Indigenous literary studies in Canada, and which can help us to reimagine or to think beyond the linguistic borders that continue to restrict us. |
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