Canada has long been a blind spot on the literary map – that has now changed. The reason for this reveals the motto of this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair “singular plurality”: the country’s extraordinary diversity.

Boy Meets Girl in Winnipeg, and Who Cares? ” is the title of an essay by Canadian Hugh McLennan published in 1958. The author was quoting a New York publisher who advised him to choose a different location for his novel – otherwise the book would not sell. McLennan, who published “Two Solitude” in 1945, the classic novel about the ignorant coexistence of Anglo- and Francophones in the country, uses the ironic quote to refer to the marginal role that Canada played until the 1960s. Played by Literatureland. Canadian author: The interiors were little known outside the country. It has changed radically since then: Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro and Michael Ondaatje are among the most famous representatives of contemporary English-language literature, with Michel Tremblay, Robert Lepage and Nicole Brossard among the Francophones.