Janice Goveas works in fiction and playwriting.  Her short fiction has been published in The New Quarterly, Pitkin in Progress and Icarus Ascending.  Her plays have been staged in the U.S. and Canada.

During the 2008-2009 season, she was the Artist in Residence at Rasik Arts in Toronto, which mounted a staged reading of her full-length play, Margaret in Search of Herself , featured in her first published collection.

She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College in Vermont and an MA in Spanish Literature from Syracuse University.

Foreword from 'Margaret In Search of Herself
and Other Plays' by Janice Goveas

When I was an undergraduate doing a degree in Spanish Literature at Carleton University in Ottawa – which, it bears mentioning, was an unusual academic route for a desi immigrant young woman in Canada, especially in the late 1970’s – I was introduced to the work of Miguel de Unamuno, a writer who was part of the Generacion de ’98, a group of Spanish writers who defined their nation’s soul at the end of the nineteenth century.

In his novel, Niebla, which is one of my all-time favourite works of fiction, Unamuno uses the concept of niebla (the Spanish word for both ‘fog’ and ‘cloud’), being the porous place between real and unreal worlds, as a metaphor for an undefined place between fact and fiction. What most struck me about the book was Unamuno’s argument that the people that are meaningful to us can as easily be characters that we meet in fiction as the flesh-and-bones people we interact with in the daily meandering of our lives. Among the things he did to prove his point was to write a foreword to Niebla and sign it with the fictional name of Victor Goti. Any library search will reveal Victor Goti as the author of the prologue to Unamuno’s novel, Niebla. He had made a fictional character become real life.

I was profoundly intrigued by this notion. I had inhabited, through my childhood and adolescence, a world in which fiction was my most constant mainstay. I read a lot of fiction over those years because I loved to read, but also it was more gratifying to me than the real world around me for a number of reasons. However, to have someone of Unamuno’s stature lend credibility to what I knew but did not know how to say – that many of the people I met in books meant more to me than many of the people around me –was a pivotal moment. I fell in love with the idea of creating people I would like to know in real life.

In Margaret in Search of Herself you will meet the title character: a woman who pitches a determined fight against the more powerful voices of her parents and her partners, which seek to control and define her, so she can ultimately get to a place where she defines herself in the way that makes the most sense for her and her world view. Among other interesting characters in the piece, you will also meet Andrea, Margaret’s cousin and closest confidante, who has a similar worldview as Margaret’s, but who could be considered both more liberated and more cynical in her approach.

Philomena Across Time was my first play, and in many ways, the one of which I am most proud. Through the most impossible fiction – the five characters are the same woman at different ages in her life – it explores the most brutal and most universal reality known to women: physical and psychological abuse at the hands of a partner she trusts and loves. It is both a fiction that challenges the reality that women are victims in this situation – because it portrays a woman completely convinced she is in charge of her own destiny – and a reality that challenges the fiction that women only have meaning when they are partnered with men, even abusive ones.

In Dinner with Akbar, you will be introduced to a title character who articulates the idiosyncrasy, particular to new immigrants to this country, of being someone who is tremendously proud and knowledgeable about where he came from and profoundly disappointed by the reality of the country he arrived in as an immigrant. Though he loses everything of value to him in the disconnect between his fiction and his reality, he holds on to his relationship with his daughter as the only thing of value, and in doing so succeeds in passing on his values and his sense of history so that what starts out being fiction to her becomes real and meaningful, and spawns its own fiction as a result.

Rave reviews for 'Margaret in Search of Herself'

Janice Goveas is that rare artist who combines stagecraft with a vision of justice. Her dramaturgical imagination is peopled with characters who have been pierced with the barbs of religion and abuse but who find the inner strength to overcome their crises. This is not to say that the men and women who Ms Goveas brings to life are flimsy shadows. She imbues their presence with dialogic verve and compassion as they struggle to find the words and deeds to resolve what seem to be often incontrovertible problems over which human actors haven’t any control. Ms Goveas is a bright star in the making.

As a long-time reader and fan of Janice Goveas’ writing, her current endeavors remain a consistently tactile journey, where words are simply used to trigger our senses and pull the reader into her richly colorful, aromatic, and textured world.

Edgy and filled with dark and at times wacky humour, Margaret in Search of Herself is the story of a young Catholic South Asian Canadian woman's complicated journey into womanhood against the backdrop of the expectations of her immigrant parents. The play, however, attempts to move past the cliché construct in which the sexual liberalism of North American culture clashes with the sexual conservatism of South Asian culture. It touches on some of the deeper dilemmas involved in the journey into womanhood, transcending the specificity of South Asian culture.

A fascinating, enjoyable read, Margaret in Search of Herself and Other Plays takes the reader on a journey inside the mindset of many a conflicted character. From Margaret, a confused and wonderfully defiant woman, to Akbar, a cultured intellectual blinded by the pain of tradition, Goveas manages to create nuanced, believable characters. Goveas’ strength lies in her insights and observations of human behaviour. She knows how to provoke her characters, she knows how they would respond to a question, she sees every expression and gesture.

Each play is strikingly different, and has its own charm. The most complex play is “Margaret in Search of Herself”, which takes an intimate look at a woman’s relationship with her parents, herself, and the men she loves (and loathes). Sometimes you admire Margaret, sometimes you’re disgusted by her—but that is what makes her authentic. “Philomena Across Time” is a disturbing look at spousal abuse and its ramifications. Instead of giving the characters names, Goveas provides us with their ages. This is an interesting and effective technique because it suggests that the victims of abuse are often depicted as statistics, not individuals. My personal favourite is “Dinner with Akbar”, a poignant exploration of the relationship between a father and daughter.

Instead of taking the easy way out or dishing out ‘happy endings’, Goveas leaves the reader with questions, and forces us to think more deeply about our own relationships and perceptions.  If you want to read a collection of poignant plays, Goveas’ Margaret in Search of Herself and Other Plays is the collection.

— Sheniz Janmohamed, CityMasala, www.citymasala.com