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Asian Heritage in Canada
Authors
Quan, Betty
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Playwright Betty Quan writes
for the stage, radio and television. She is a graduate of
the University of British Columbia.
Two of her plays are available in copyscript format from Playwrights
Canada Press: Nancy Chew Enters the Dragon,
and, The Dragon's Pearl. Other plays
that have been produced include Fault Lines,
and Ghost Train, that was adapted
from the award winning book by Paul Yee
and illustrated by Harvey Chan. |
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Drama
Mother Tongue
Montreal: Scirocco Drama, 1996.
9th floor PS8583
.U332 M68 1996
Publisher's Synopsis
Mother Tongue is a unique and innovative
play that weaves together Cantonese, English and American
Sign Language. It is about family loyalties, youthful dreams,
and generational and cultural differences.
Set in Vancouver, [it] follows the life of a widowed middle-aged
mother and her two children, Mimi, an aspiring architecture
student, and 16-year-old Steve who lost his hearing at age
11.
Awards and Honours
1996 Governor
General's Literary Award--English Drama (Nominated)
Also:
"Mother Tongue." In Love + Relasianships: A Collection of Contemporary Asian-Canadian Drama. Volume 1, ed. Nina Lee Aquino. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2009, 163-189.
9th floor PS8309 .A75 L68 2009
Other Information
Mother Tongue was co-produced by
Factory Theatre and Cahoots Theatre Projects in Toronto, May
5-June 3, 2001, at the Factory Theatre. |
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Non-fiction (Comic book)
Nitro!
Art by Michael Dixon.
Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1998.
This is a comic book account of the Chinese labourers who
helped to build the Canadian Pacific Railroad in the late
19th century. |
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Non-fiction (Memoir--Juvenile literature)
Once Upon a Full Moon
Toronto: Tundra Books, 2007.
Publisher's Synopsis (from its website)
Elizabeth Quan’s father had made a success in the New World, but he longed for his home in China. So in the early 1920’s, he and his family set out on an arduous trip to the far side of the world. By train, ship, ferry, cart, and on foot, Elizabeth, her parents, and her brothers and sisters set off from Toronto to a village in China to visit the grandmother they have never met.
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In the course of her family’s travels she learns that home is a state of mind and that the moon can find us, no matter where we are.The rhythms of travel and the longing for connection are conveyed in lyrical text and lovely watercolors in a truly memorable book.
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Anthologies (Drama)
Beyond the Pale: Dramatic Writing From
First Nations Writers & Writers of Colour
Edited by Yvette Nolan, Betty Quan, George Bwanika Seremba.
Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 1996.
Includes Betty Quan's "One Ocean" |
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Anthologies (Drama)
Taking the Stage: Selections from Plays
by Canadian Women
Edited by Cyndi Zimmerman.
Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 1994.
9th floor PS8315
.T35 1994
Includes an excerpt from Scene III of Betty Quan's "Nancy
Chew Enters the Dragon." |
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Selected Criticism and Interpretation
Rodgers, Jenna. "Manipulating Theatrical Space to Create Physical Space: Betty Quan's Mother Tongue Reclaiming Space for the Indiviual." In Asian Canadian Theatre, ed. Nina Lee Aquino and Ric Knowles. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2011, 171-182.
9th floor PS8089.5 .A8 A835 2011
Ty, Eleanor, ""All of Us Are the Same": Negotiating Loss, Witnessing Disability," chap. in Unfastened: Globality and Asian North American Narratives. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010, 43-62.
9th floor PS153 .A84 T9 2010 (also available as an e-book) |
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