11th International Conference on the Short Story in English

Crossing Literary and Cultural Borders in Drew Hayden Taylor’s Short Story Collection, Fearless Warriors.

While the acclaimed Ojbway playwright and author, Drew Hayden Taylor, from the Curve Lake First Nations in Central Ontario, is primarily known for his comedies and dramas in Canada, the international recognition of his work has grown tremendously in recent years. Taylor's first short-story collection, Fearless Warriors, originally published in 1998, was followed by a revised edition ten years later. Surpringly, little scholarly attention has been given to this collection whose title sets the tone for an ironic juxtaposition between the sterotypical image of the romanticized fearless warriors of yore and their not-so-fearless contemporary counterparts.

In several stories, the author deals with the notion of borders - of the mind, between Natives and non-Natives, and among First Nations themselves. The recounted stories span a diverse spectrum of contemporary cultural, social, and political topics such as death by misadventure, loss of parents and children, search for identity, status and non-status/off- and on-reserve Indians, children of the "scoop-up" policy, intolerance of same-sex relationships, and the incident at Oka. As a contemporary indigenous storyteller, Talyor breaks with some of the commonly accepted features of North American and European short story writing. Hence, this paper focuses on borders: the traditional short story form vs. the short story form fashioned by Taylor's interpretation of indigenous oral storytelling traditions; transitions from short story to drama; and the fine line between intercultural issues.

The Border as Fiction