After Canadian multiculturalism: David chariandy

No aspect of life in Canada has been untouched by the discourse of multiculturalism, and the evidence of a particular version of multiculturalism in Canada cannot be denied. However, it might be useful to think of at least two kinds of multiculturalisms in Canada-official and vernacular. These two strains of multiculturalism are interconnected but also at odds with each other. Black writers, artists, and musicians in Canada have worked the interstices of these two strains of multiculturalism to varying successes. This chapter suggests that the most successful deployment of vernacular multiculturalism is when it is unburdened by a desire to prove itself in relation to official multiculturalism and that David Chariandy writes in this mode. If the generation of Black writers before David Chariandy, like Austin Clarke, wrote consciously in relation to official multiculturalism-often as a critique of its limitations-Chariandy takes multiculturalism for granted as the foundational vernacular experience of the characters that populate his novels. In other words, Chariandy's novels inhabit and exemplify an after-multiculturalism attitude in which the everyday multicultural and multiracial encounters are simply just a way of life.