"A Culture of Rights is an important and timely book that will prompt serious rethinking about the strengths and limits of the rights revolution and of Canada's role in its implementation. If anyone is looking for proof of the value of humanities research, then this book is it." -- Diana Brydon, Canada Research Chair in Globalization and Cultural Studies, Department of English, Film, and Theatre, University of Manitoba

With the passage into law of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, rights took on new legal, political, and social significance in Canada. In the decades following, Canadian jurisprudence has emphasised the importance of rights, determining their shape and asserting their centrality to legal ideas about what Canada represents. At the same time, an increasing number of Canadian  novels have also engaged with the language of human rights and civil liberties, reflecting, like their counterparts in law, the possibilities of rights and the failure of their protection.

In A Culture of Rights, Benjamin Authers reads novels by authors including Joy Kogawa, Margaret Atwood, Timothy Findley, and Jeanette Armstrong alongside legal texts and key constitutional rights cases, arguing for the need for a more complex, interdisciplinary understanding of the sources of rights in Canada and elsewhere. He suggests that, at present, even when rights are violated, popular insistence on Canada’s rights-driven society remains. Despite the limited scope of our rights, and the deferral of more substantive rights protections to some projected, ideal Canada, we remain keen to promote ourselves as members of an entirely just society.

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‘This book is a good model of interdisciplinarity – Authers succeeds in marrying the different domains of law and literature in a complex and interesting analysis.’

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"For readers interested in delving into how the values of the Charter are represented and understood in Canadian culture, A Culture of Rights provides an excellent introduction."

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"A Culture of Rights is an insightful contribution to Canadian cultural criticism and opens more space for readings of the relationship between literature and politics."

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"This book is a fascinating exploration of the rights revolution in Canada through legal and literary approaches…The unique interdisciplinary approach (law and literature) of this book highlights the wonderful scholarly benefits that can be produced from taking such a perspective. I wholeheartedly recommend it to both specialists and general readers alike."