This volume investigates the past four decades of criticism devoted to two major female contemporary writers: the New Zealander Janet Frame, and the Canadian Margaret Laurence, author of A Jest of God. The first extensive study to compare the two, it considers early close readings meant to promulgate each writer's work, and traces the various influences of narrative, feminist, postmodernist, and postcolonialist theory on a wide-ranging selection of commentaries. The book also focuses on connections among writers, critics, and a country's mythologies of nationalism, and, of particular significance to Canada and New Zealand, how literatures and commentaries on it illustrate national and international uses of power. Throughout, Professor Irvine points to similarities between the writers' careers, their influence on the development of the literary histories of their respective countries, their ambivalent feelings about England, and, finally, their concern with certain marginalized groups, such as the Maoris. An extensive bibliography completes the volume.