A review of Ground to Stand On by Sandra Djwa

Reviewed by Ruth Latta

Ground to Stand On
A Canadian Literary Life
by Sandra Djwa
McGill-Queen’s Press
July 2026, Paperback, 288 pages, ISBN: 9780228027720

Sandra Djwa’s autobiography, Ground to Stand On: A Canadian Literary Life, is like an in-depth conversation with a brilliant, accomplished new friend.)  Women like myself who entered higher education in the 1960s and 1970s will identify with her struggles in male-dominated academia, and her experiences with American professors who viewed Canada as second-rate.

Sandra Djwa (nee Drodge) rose from modest beginnings in St. John’s, Newfoundland to become a tenured English professor and chair of the English department of British Columbia’s Simon Fraser University (SFU).  She has authored award-winning biographies with both popular and  academic appeal, and has won the prestigious Governor General’s Award. She is a member of the Order of Canada.

Descended from English settlers who came to Newfoundland in the 1770s to work in the cod fishery, her parents were a Merchant Marine captain and a dressmaker.  Sandra was born in 1939, the year World War II began, and saw little of her father during her early childhood.  Her earliest memories, she writes, “are of war blackouts, my mother’s fears about German subs in the St. John’s Harbour, and the birth of my two younger sisters.”

Several experiences during her girlhood and teen years pointed Djwa to her path in life.  In 1949, when Newfoundland united with Canada, she became aware of a larger society available to her. In high school, the poetry of Newfoundlander E.J. Pratt, showed her that their challenging maritime environment  could be the subject matter for literature.  By the time she had completed highschool, Premier Joey Smallwood, who was interested in preserving Newfoundland history and culture, was offering merit-based scholarships to the newly established Memorial University in St. John’s.

Sandra was awarded one of these scholarships, along with other prizes, and entered Memorial to study Education, which was considered a suitable field for a woman. She loved her English courses.  At the end of her first year, she met an Indonesian student from the University of British Columbia (UBC) through the progressive Student Christian Movement.  His name was Peter Djwa, they courted by correspondence, and in 1958 she left Newfoundland for B.C. to marry him.

Instead of resuming her studies immediately, she worked for the United Church and the Junior Red Cross while Peter, a mechanical engineer, pursued his M.B.A.  In 1962, she was accepted into the Education program at UBC and also registered in the Faculty of Arts to take honours English. Befriended by the head of the UBC English department, Dr. Roy Daniells, she realized that she fit well into academic life.  When she graduated with her B.A. she came first in the UBC English department and won a medal for her graduate essay on E.J. Pratt’s poem, “The Titanic.”

By the fall of 1968, Sandra Djwa had an infant son, her Ph.D. in English and a teaching position at Simon Fraser University. There, she soon realized that American professors had gained ascendancy in the English department.  The department saw itself as progressive, she writes, “but we Canadians found it reactionary in its reluctance to hire available Canadian faculty or recognize Canadian literature.”  She was disrespected, not only as a Canadian but as a woman. “Micro-aggressions,” as she called them, ranged from attempts to play footsie with her in seminars to accusations that her necklines were too low and her skirts too short.  On one occasion, a professor ranted at her to the effect that women scholars should not marry and have children.

To get away from this atmosphere, Djwa applied for a post-doctoral fellowship from the University of Alberta English department to research and write a biography of E.J. Pratt. In the  mid-1970s, following publication of the Symons Report, which advocated “the Canadianization of Canadian Universities,” the field of Canadian literature advanced. At this time, Canadian novelists like Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood, among others, were getting published to acclaim.

Djwa received a Canada Council grant to study Canadian poetry from the 17th century to the 20th century modernists, a project that involved cross-Canada travel. Her research brought her into contact with Frank R. Scott, poet, law professor at McGill University, social democratic party founder, and defender of social justice.  They agreed that she would write his autobiography, focusing on his public life, not his private affairs.

Early on in the project, Scott joked that he was the “bio” and Djwa the “graphy,” but eventually he realized that a biographer did not merely record the subject’s life events, but  interpreted recurrent themes and patterns in the subject’s life.  Both Scott and his wife, however, were adamant about omitting personal matters. After Scott’s death, his widow, the artist Marian Dale Scott, wanted Djwa to delete all the references to her art and family life, as she wanted to “affirm her own identity and was considering a book on her art.”  She and Sandra agreed to include limited references to their family life.

In 1987, two years after Scott’s death, Djwa published The Politics of the Imagination: A Life of F.R. Scott.  She went on to write biographies of Dr. Roy Daniells and the poet, P.K. Page. Djwa’s thoughts on the art of biography are important to keep in mind.