Abstract: This paper analyzes the first published novel of the dominant second-generation Portuguese-Canadian writer, Erika de Vasconcelos, in the context of António Augusto Joel’s claim that while Canadian literature of Portuguese background fails to achieve mainstream status, de Vasconcelos has managed to escape this marginalization. The novel My Darling Dead Ones, best characterized as a biografictione, or (auto)biographical fiction of component fictions, fruitfully spans multiple generational, geographical, and cultural spaces, sending a powerful message to Portuguese-Canadians and suggesting a possible future path for the literature of Portuguese background in Canada. The novel indeed appears to transcend the debatable boundaries separating mainstream and “ethnic” or “minority” literature, and its featuring of Portugal and of the Portuguese does not relegate the work to a ghetto of cultural segregation.

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