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April 7 - April 14, 2002 |
In praise of a long-lost Republic
Italian-Canadian author Fulvio Caccia discusses views in The Loss of Canada
By Antonio Maglio
Originally Published: 2002-03-31
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Govenor General Award recipient Fulvio Caccia
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He had already anticipated his ideas in a controversial essay, La Republique Metis. Now Fulvio Caccia has organically developed his theories in a book, Republic Denied - The Loss of Canada. The book was presented two weeks ago by Publisher Antonio D'Alfonso, president of Guernica Editions, to a large audience gathered at Bar Italia, on College Street. Along with Caccia's book, D'Alfonso also presented Mario Frattini's Sisters and Lovers and Sylvie Chaput's Isabelle's Notebooks.
Fulvio Caccia, who arrived from Paris, France, especially for this occasion, was the guest of honour. Not just because he was, with d'Alfonso and Lamberto Tassinari, one of the protagonists of Montreal's cultural life in the Eighties (they founded the famous Vice Versa magazine), but also because he's one of the two Italian-Canadian authors (the other is Nino Ricci) who have been awarded the prestigious Governor General's Award, Canada's top literary prize, for Aknos, a poetry collection. His works raise controversy and praise: Irpinia, Quetes: textes d'auteurs italoquebecois, Sous le signe du Phénix, Panorama de la poesie contemporaire française, Aknos and other poems, Metamorphose d'une Utopie, Lilas, Voix d'Irlande et du Quebec, just to mention a few.
The Republican issue is increasingly central to your works. Is it mere provocation or do you really think that Canada could change its institutional system?
"Both. It's a provocation to induce people to think about it. After that, the conditions of a change will have been created. Then, I'm sure, Canadians will be able to take back the opportunities they've missed in the last 180 years."
Australian Republicans promoted a referendum in 1999, which was won by Monarchists for a fistful of votes. Why isn't this option even considered in Canada?
"Because, differently from Australia, Canada is the product of the conflict and subsequent agreement between two failed colonial empires: the French and the British in America. That agreements still holds, and is founded on a rejection of republic. Why should a referendum be held, when it's inconvenient to both Canadian hegemonic groups?"
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