Norman Levine's Canada Made Me, first published in England in 1958, is a bitter, critical reassessment of the moral and cultural values of Canada. His account of his three-month journey from Halifax to Ucluelet, a fishing village on the west coast, is an unconventional portrait of Canada's underbelly. The book ends with the words: I wondered why I felt so bitter about Canada. After all, it was all part of a dream, an experiment that could not come off. It was foolish to believe that you can take the throwouts, the rejects, the human kickabouts from Europe and tell them: Here you have a second chance. Here you can start a new life. But no one ever mentioned the price one had to pay; how much of oneself you had to betray.'Canada Made Me was regarded as so controversial that it did not appear in a Canadian edition until 1979. Critical opinion, however, has slowly swung around to the point the book was recently described in the Globe and Mail as a laconic classic'. For this new edition Norman Levine has written an introduction which traces the book's publishing history and reputation. Norman Levine was born in Ottawa in 1923. During World War II, he served in the RCAF with a Lancaster squadron based in Yorkshire. He subsequently studied at Cambridge and McGill Universities, receiving his M.A. from McGill University in 1949. In 1949 he was awarded a $5,000 fellowship to do post-graduate work at King's College, London. He left Canada with the manuscript for his first novel under his arm and spent the next 31 years in England, mainly in St Ives, Cornwall.Norman Levine is the author of two books of poetry; two novels, The Angled Road and From a Seaside Town; and several collections of shortfiction, including 'By a Frozen River' and 'The Ability to Forget'.

Norman Levine's Canada Made Me, first published in England in 1958, is a bitter, critical reassessment of the moral and cultural values of Canada. His account of his three-month journey from Halifax to Ucluelet, a fishing village on the west coast, is an unconventional portrait of Canada's underbelly. The book ends with the words: I wondered why I felt so bitter about Canada. After all, it was all part of a dream, an experiment that could not come off. It was foolish to believe that you can take the throwouts, the rejects, the human kickabouts from Europe and tell them: Here you have a second chance. Here you can start a new life. But no one ever mentioned the price one had to pay; how much of oneself you had to betray.'

Canada Made Me was regarded as so controversial that it did not appear in a Canadian edition until 1979. Critical opinion, however, has slowly swung around to the point the book was recently described in the Globe and Mail as a laconic classic'. For this new edition Norman Levine has written an introduction which traces the book's publishing history and reputation.