Yesterday I finished reading The Fame Machine: Book Reviewing and Eighteenth-Century Literary Careers by Frank Donoghue. In this book, Donoghue examines the role of literary reviews in the production of the careers of three eighteenth-century authors, who sought to establish themselves as professionals: Laurence Sterne, Oliver Goldsmith, and Tobias Smollett, who was both an author and the editor of the Critical Review. Donoghue selects the period spanning the mid-1700s as it represented a shift in the conditions of literary production, which resulted in the rise in competition for cultural authority. Over this time period, he identifies a number of changes: the rising professionalization of the author (versus writing as a trade), the growth of the market of readers, and the increasingly influential role of reviewers, who “sought to police both the production and consumption of literature” (17). However, the strength of Donoghue’s argument becomes apparent in his final chapter when he shifts his attention to female literary careers, as the careers of female writers and their strategies of gaining legitimacy magnify the intricacies of the author-review relationship during the mid-eighteenth century.

Overall, books like Donoghue’s, as well as those on literary awards, help to highlight the complicated interplay that occurs in the field of literary production and the multiple texts, objects, events, practices, agents, etc., that in turn impact the production of literary celebrity. While examinations of the production of celebrity often focus on the role of publicity and visibility, it is also important to consider the industrial side of things, that is, the role of institutions, events, practices, debates, etc. that take place inside the literary field (and not predominately in the larger field of power). In this respect, I have found York’s industrial analysis of celebrity and the literature on literary awards, which generally do not mention the word “celebrity,” extremely useful.

At this point, I would like to turn to the aptly-named “scandal” that has been taking place this week, and no, I am not talking about Rob Ford, but “The scandal that is Canadian literature,” an article written by Thomas Hodd, Assistant Professor of Canadian literature at the Université de Moncton, and published in the Toronto Star.

Hodd’s article is written in response to the “scandalous” bestowal of the Governor General’s literary award for fiction to Eleanor Catton and her novel The Luminaries, which also won the 2013 Man Booker Prize. For Hodd, Catton’s win represents a scandal because she does not live in Canada; although she was born in Canada, she moved away at age six. Does this not seem a bit familiar? Here, I am reminded of the discourse surrounding the awarding of Nobel Prize in Literature to Alice Munro and the declaration of her as the first Canadian to win the award, ignoring in the process a previous recipient, the Canadian-born, American-residing author, Saul Bellow. Conversely, I am reminded of Carol Shield’s Pulitzer, which was viewed as an eminent achievement for Canada but was made possible only because of Shield’s American birth.

Hodd mentions Munro’s Nobel Prize in his article, seeing it as a shame that “it was the rest of the world who understood this fundamental part of the writer’s role in nation-building and consequently rewarded Munro for her contribution. Who did Canada award for our country’s top literary prize this year? A New Zealander” (Hodd).

Here, it is curious that Hodd places so much value on the author and her role in nation-building, while simultaneously disregarding the nation-strengthening effect of a Canadian winning an extranational prize such as the Nobel. This also further prompts the question: does Canadian literature have to be about Canada to be Canadian? One of the best responses to Hodd’s article comes from an online commenter, a Canadian writer and citizen who is unable to reside in Canada for various reasons. In her commentary, she questions Hodd’s simplistic rejection of Canadian non-residents as non-citizens. While I am not necessarily interested in participating in this debate, it does speak volumes about how we construct Canadian identity and literature, how we view the role of literature in nation-building, and in turn how this affects whom we choose to celebrate in Canada, as Canadian.