Black Canadian Literature as Diaspora Transgression: The Second Life of Samuel Tyne

This paper attempts to interrogate some of the challenges involved in the ar-ticulation of a black Canadian literature and suggests that such a literature may best be understood not as a set of “coherent ” national narratives but as a complex engagement of the multiple diasporic experiences that inform and influence understandings of Canadian-ness. The study argues, therefore, that the very diasporic character of black Canadian literature—its pluralism and heterogeneity—articulate a deliberately transgressive Canadian-ness. By linking narrative and social geographies, the paper situates the works of black women writers in the Americas as part of a tradition of the counter-novel, involved in acts of boundary crossing and cultural and textual unmanageability. The paper explores finally the disruptive, but also potentially liberating, function of the literature by engaging in a detailed discussion of Esi Edugyan’s novel The Second Life of Samuel Tyne. RéSUMé Ce texte tente d’interroger quelques’uns des défis impliqués dans l’articulation d’une littérature Afro-canadienne et suggère qu’une telle literature serait la mieux comprise non pas comme un tout cohérent de narrations nationales, mais comme un engagement complexe d’expériences diasporiques multiples informant et influençant les compréhensions des Canadianismes. Argumentant que le caractère très diasporique de la littérature Afro-canadienne—son pluralisme et son hétérogénéité—exprime clairement un canadianisme transgressif délibéré, ce texte situe les travaux d’écrivaines d’origine africaine dans les Amériques comme faisant partie de cette tradition de traversées transgressives de frontières et d’impossibilité