Jean Rivard - University of British Columbia

style than Little Sister. The play is as much
concerned with our unrecorded history and
the AIDS crisis, as it is an exploration of
morality and idealism. As Glynis Leyshon
states in her preface, the work "explores
three profoundly different realities: a past, a
present and an entirely poetic world of dramatic
'testaments.'" These levels continually
overlap, coming together only at the
close of the play. In the "present," middleaged
actress Irene Dickenson is touring
central British Columbia with her onewoman
show about the Doukhobors. As
Irene recalls her youth and is transported
into the "past," she relives her idealistic fascination
with the province's Doukhobors.
A third dramatic level consists of three
monologues by three Doukhobor martyrs.
By the end of the play—when theatrical
images merge to evoke the tragedy of AIDS
and a middle-aged woman's moment of
self-discovery—it is evident that these
monologues are actually Irene's one-woman
show. Through the use of theatrical effect,
MacLeod moves the reader toward compassion
for Irene and an understanding of the
complex issues that form the substance of
her drama. The Hope Slide—which won the
1993 Chalmers Awards—is eloquent, passionate,
and finally hopeful, a welcome
combination in this age of cynicism.
Inside Diasporas
Makeda Silvera, ed.
The Other Woman: Women of Colour in
Contemporary Canadian Literature. Sister Vision
$24-95
Joseph Pivato
Echo: Essays on Other Literatures. Guernica
$18.00
Reviewed by Donna Palmateer Pennée
Silvera's is a rich collection of indigenous
and diasporic voices and positions, useful
bibliographies, and wonderful photographs,
all in a pleasing format and structure that
alternates interviews with essays. The collection
comprises comparative knowledges
and critical strategies, derived from comparative
(because diasporic) experience of
language and place, and the imbrications of
these with the discourses of race, class, gender,
erotic preference, nation, colonialism,
multiculturalism, family, state, religion,
and education. Personal experience—of
coming to writing, of racism, sexism, classism,
immigration, of residential schools,
university training and teaching, of publishing
and reviewing in Canada, and so
on—is focal point and category for the
more than twenty women writers represented
here (the one male critic is more
concerned with ars poética). Seldom, however,
does experience remain uninterrogated
or is it essentialized: in this volume,
experience produces theory rather than is
opposed to it. Many of the contributors
implicitly erase the distinction between
theory and practice and between creative
and analytical work, but some contributors
also insist on their differences (in, for
example, the talk between Silvera, Bannerji,
and Brand). Others explicitly integrate the
personal, political, critical, and theoretical:
the most successful pieces in this light are
Rita Wong's "Jumping on hyphens" and
Saloni Mathur's "bell hooks Called me a
'Woman of Colour'."
At moments, the interviews seem less
successful than most of the essays, perhaps
because so many of them are conducted by
Silvera who uses a series of more or less set
questions inflected toward the autobiographical
and intimate. However, the nearrepetitive
structure actually produces useful
and important counterpoints in the text as
different voices enter into it (or even resist
it, as in Brand's case), as the autobiographical
is alternately rejected, disguised, revisioned,
or embraced, and as the public
and representative role of the
writer/critic/teacher/intellectual is encouraged,
risked, debated, enlarged. Silvera
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