Toward the North is the first anthology of thirteen short fiction pieces written and translated by Chinese-Canadian writers during the last two decades, each of which depicts the contemporary lives of new Chinese immigrants to Canada, and illustrates newcomers' perspectives of multicultural Canada. The theme of the anthology is Chinese transnational and cross-cultural life experience. A fundamental concern shared by most of the authors is to redefine their characters' cultural identity in their acculturation across times and space. In these stories, the exploration of the relationship between Chinese immigrants and Canadians extends beyond "yellow"/"white" binary model, revealing interactions between the Chinese and other ethnic communities. Struggles between cultural assimilation and resistance are vividly and captivatedly portrayed. The authors' approaches to their characters' life experience of culture's in-between displays an intriguing diversity both in content and in styles.

Hua Laura Wu was born in Beijing, China. She came to Canada in 1985. She studied comparative literature and Chinese literature at the Centre for Comparative Literature and the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto, where she graduated with her PhD. She is currently an associate professor of Chinese language and culture at Huron University College in London Ontario. Her current research is a comparative study of Chinese Canadian writers who write in English (Asian Canadian literature) and in Chinese (Sinophone literature). She has translated many literary and scholarly works, from English to Chinese and from Chinese to English.

Hua Laura Wu's profile page

Xueqing Xu is Associate Professor in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, York University. Her recent research interests focus on Chinese Canadian diasporic literature both in English and in Chinese, and on Chinese women literature. She has published numerous articles and chapters on Chinese Canadian literature both in Chinese and English during the past decade. She lives in Toronto.

Xueqing Xu's profile page

Corinne (Cory) Bieman Davies is Professor Emerita at Huron University College in London, Ontario. She has published on nineteenth and twentieth century British Literature, and has travelled in China. Cory owes her interest in the literature of the Chinese diaspora to her love and respect for her Chinese Canadian daughter-in-law, and to her friendships with her colleagues in Asian Studies at Huron.

Corinne Bieman Davies' profile page

"An impressive selection of finely translated fiction representing recent work by many of the most active Chinese-Canadian writers, these stories speak from a variety of perspectives to the contemporary Chinese-Canadian cultural moment. Set mainly in Canada by writers with deep experience of the country, the stories address the challenges of migration and cultural change, the personal costs exacted by the slow process of building new lives, the burdens of history, and the difficulties of communication. But they also offer, often poignantly, at times with sly humour, narratives of renewal, rebuilding, and new beginnings. A very welcome addition to the growing bookshelf of work in English by Chinese-Canadian writers."
-- Joseph Black, Professor, Department of English, University of Massachusetts Amherst

"These stories, translated from the Chinese, will knock your socks off. Universal themes of finding and losing love, family conflict, discovering a sense of home and belonging, death and murder(!), and the birth of babies are presented through the specific, lived experiences of first generation Chinese Canadians."
--Catherine Sheldrick Ross, Professor Emerita, University of Western Ontario, London