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In June 2015 The Canadian Polish Research Institute organized a panel discussion chaired by professor Tamara Trojanowska called “Writing Change and Continuity: Culture, Languages, Generations.” The debate featured esteemed writers of Polish descent: Eva Stachniak, Andrew Borkowski, Ania Szado, Jowita Bydlowska and Aga Maksimowska. Although the writers in question do not belong to the same generation and do not share exactly the same emigration experience, nowadays they form a distinguished group of Canadian writers of Polish origins. The aim of this paper is to look at the selection of the latest texts written by authors of the Polish diaspora in Canada such as Eva Stachniak’s The Chosen Maiden (2017), Jowita Bydlowska’s Drunk Mom (2013) and Guy (2016), Ania Szado’s Studio Saint Ex (2013) and Aga Maksimowska’s Giant (2012) among others. This paper does not venture to repeat the conclusions drawn during the panel but rather to extend the exploration of the recent Polish diasporic, multivoiced writing as well as off er a modest supplement to the famous analysis of ethnic writing proposed by Smaro Kamboureli in her Scandalous Bodies: Diasporic Literature in English Canada (2009). Hence, the discussion comprises the authors’ choice of themes, (dis)appearance of immigrant motifs, references to Poland as a country of origin and Canada as the new homeland as well as an analysis of the genres the aforementioned authors use. Diasporic writing has been a subject of many discussions and inquiries. Writers of the Polish diaspora in Canada have also experienced a range of dilemmas such as for instance: what language of expression to choose, how to engage their writing in a dialogue with the mainstream Anglophone (or Francophone) Canadian literature, and how to remain unique yet at the same time understandable in Canada and worldwide. The ‘Polish’ group of writers in Canada, although not extremely big, has proposed a varied and multivocal discussion on issues both connected to the experience of migration as well as more universal ones. Smaro Kamboureli, who in chapter three of Scandalous Bodies entitled “Ethnic Anthologies: From Designated Margins to Postmodern Multiculturalism” focusing on ethnic writing, 150 Dagmara Drewniak notices an important process of the diasporic writers’ transition from defi ning who they were in the country of origins to becoming a new person in Canada as well as the validity of such themes in their texts: “The hiatus between being – who the ethnic subject was, who he thinks he still is – and becoming – what becomes of him in Canada, how others perceive him is what [...] these [texts] invite us to interrogate” (2000, 139). Although Kamboureli’s analysis does not include any example of Polish diasporic writing,2 it can be applied to these works as well. It has to be noted, however, that not all of the texts discussed here straightforwardly refer to this process of becoming Canadian (or Polish-Canadian), but sometimes the presentation of a given work in the context of the writer’s oeuvre helps to see these references. Moreover, as Kamboureli has stated, the doubleness of diasporic writing “does not necessarily mean that we remain lodged within the inherited binary structures that have given rise to the construction of Otherness. Rather, it points to the fact that such discourse moves away from the very boundaries these paradigmatic structures have installed; in this case [Kamboureli continues], boundaries do not separate, but mark the point from which something begins” (2000, 131). On the basis of these broad statements and their inclusive, rather than exclusive, categorization, this paper will try to present a selection of issues and themes found in prose texts written by the writers of Polish origin and published in English in Canada after 2010. In her Making a Diff erence. Canadian Multicultural Literature (1996), Kamboureli includes a few texts written by writers coming from Central and Eastern Europe (seen as vast and rather undefi ned), like Frederick Philip Grove, Vera Lysenko, George Faludy, Rachel Korn and A. M. Klein, but the only writer in the anthology who is said to have come from Poland is Helen Weinzweig, who herself did not refer substantially to her country of origin in her writing.3 Among the texts selected for the second volume of Cynthia Sugars and Laura Moss’s anthology Canadian Literature in English. Texts and Contexts (2009), devoted entirely to 20th century literature, the representation of Central European writers is also very poor and they do not appear, except for the already canonical ones such as Leonard Cohen4 and Frederick Philip Grove, both already perceived as mainstream Canadian. Yet another interesting article, although too short to have grasped the whole range of the research and literary output, was published in 1981 under the suggestive title “The Unheard Voices: Ideological and Literary Identifi cation of Canada’s Ethnic Voices.” Judy Young’s aim in this text is to be the “megaphone” (104) for the unheard ethnic voices from precisely the region explored in this study, although Young actually focuses on Ukrainian literature in Canada. She admits, however, that in order to deal correctly with this body of work, “one must be a linguist genius, literary critic, historian and sociologist” (Young 106), thereby shedding light on the diffi culty of the undertaking. Since the question of language has been raised here, it needs to be stated that it is actually poetry of Polish immigrants to Canada that has received more of “[Th ey] would say she was betraying Poland already”... 151 a critical and scholarly attention than prose. There are few substantial studies of Polish-Canadian poetry, written usually in Polish, and translated occasionally into English, prepared by Bożena Szałasta-Rogowska in 2005 and 2010, Justyna Budzik in 2013 or by Bogdan Czaykowski,5 to name only a few. These texts, however, concentrate only on poetry which has been mostly written in Polish and thus has remained largely unknown to Canadians. There are many reasons for the poor literary visibility of the Polish group in Canada. The fact that Polish immigration in Canada has always been lower in numbers than other groups is only one reason, and does not explain the whole issue. Both Kamboureli in her study of ethnic writing and Eugenia Sojka in her invaluable essay on the writing of the Polish diaspora in Canada quote the famous example of an anthology of Chilean texts (Chilean Literature in Canada (1982), edited by Naín Nómez). They emphasize the fact that the Chilean diaspora, which has only about 26,000 members in Canada, is anthologized despite its size.6 This comparison strongly suggests that it is not only in numbers that the ‘advantage’ of some groups in Canada over others lies. Since the 1970s and 1980s, after the implementation of the policy of multiculturalism in the form of legislation (in 1988 the Canadian Multiculturalism Act was passed by the Parliament) and rights granted to all minorities who have been invited to cherish their ethnicity (in 1971 Trudeau declared the adoption of the policy, in 1982 it was recognized by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms), more and more writers of various ethnic origins have undertaken the topic of identity and (un)belonging in their diasporic narratives. However, it happens that some groups are more visible than others, and the division does not run only through the dichotomies between visible versus invisible minorities. Consequently, the literature of Polish writers in Canada is displaced and appears as a fragmented archipelago of interesting texts and authors. The scholarly debate on this phenomenon also refl ects this problem. Nevertheless, critical inquiry into ‘Polish-Canadian’ (however awkward and undefi nable the term is) writing is also visible among Polish scholars interested in Canadian literature. Apart from the comprehensive essay by Eugenia Sojka (2010), mentioned above, there are a few other publications. These include the pioneer study entitled Obraz Kanady w Polsce (2003), edited by Mirosława Buchholtz, which comprises essays on various topics, including a text by Professor Nancy Burke, founder of the Canadian Studies Centre at Warsaw University, and The Laboratory of French-Canadian Culture and the Literature of Quebec, led by Professor Józef Kwaterko. Mirosława Buchholtz also published Polska w Kanadzie Kanada w Polsce (2008), which includes poems by Maria Magdalena Rudiuk, a short story by Eva Stachniak, and essays by leading scholars in the fi elds of history, politics, and literature, as well as photographs by Andrzej J. Cieśliński. Another recent publication, Niuanse wyobcowania. Diaspora i tematyka polska w Kanadzie (2014), edited by Anna Branach-Kallas, is worth mentioning, as it joins both 152 Dagmara Drewniak English-Canadian and French-Canadian texts referring to Poland and the Polish diaspora in Canada. While publications on the literature of the Polish writers in Canada are relatively scarce, there is quite an abundant body of literature written in Polish in Canada. The phenomenon of the Polish diaspora undoubtedly enriches the picture of the literature in question. It also blurs the boundaries of the concept of PolishCanadian literature and encroaches upon the discussion of the classifi cation of ethnic writers. Despite the fact that it gives voice and visibility to the extremely important trend of writing Polish literature (and not one by Canadians of Polish descent, or a Polish-Canadian one) within Canada, it may also have contributed to the lack of unity of Polish-Canadian writers, as the line of division lies within the language as well. A seminal publication in this context is the 2002 Antologia poezji polskiej na obczyźnie 1929–1999 [An Anthology of Polish Poetry in Exile 1929–1999], edited by Bogdan Czaykowski, which, despite the fact that it includes a whole range of poems that have been created outsid

“[They] would say she was betraying Poland already”: Major Themes in Contemporary Canadian Literature by Writers of Polish Origins