Richard Stursberg’s powerful analysis of the recent failure of the Canadian book publishing industry came out in print this year. He is a former media executive and writer. The news he has to offer us is shocking and very disturbing.

His publisher is Sutherland House, a relatively new publishing house in Toronto created and overseen by writer and journalist Ken Whyte. Prominent in Sutherland House’s current list, Stursberg’s “Lament for a Literature” alerts both readers and cultural observers to startlingly negative changes in book publishing in Canada and why the changes occurred when it did. The once vital and many-sided realm of Canadian literary expression has been sadly reduced by such changes. Having been academically involved in what I thought of as Canada’s golden age, I was deeply disturbed by his analysis.

Stursberg argues that the recent failure of Canadian publishing was a complex and largely unforeseen tragedy resulting from a combination of changing publishing policies, individual company bankruptcies, and the conspicuous failure of successive Canadian governments to address the perilous situation in a wise and proactive way. Decades of cultural vision and growth, and of impressive literary output, have been compromised by this devastating mess of the moment.

That growth included an unprecedented record of achievement in the arts and in popular entertainment that seemed just a few years ago to be gaining strength and momentum. Our northern and transcontinental identity had been developed by legions of writers and impressive projects, and our continuing vitality seemed assured. The literary achievements of Hugh McLennan, Margaret Laurence, Alice Munro, W.O. Mitchell, Mordecai Richler, Margaret Atwood, Robert Kroetsch, Norman Levine, Roch Carrier, Marie Claire Blais, Timothy Findley, Alistair MacLeod and Robertson Davies (to name a few) strikingly echoed in the realms of film, comedy and informed analysis.

The potential inherent in our national vision and identity seemed poised to carry........

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