By Stephen Marche. Viking Canada, 254 pp, $32, hardcover

Shining at the Bottom of the Sea, Stephen Marche's literary survey of Sanjania–that unknown cove-pocked treasure of the North Atlantic–exhibits just how far the former British colony has travelled in a century or more. Its undated first entry, "The Destruction of Marlye ­bone, the Private King", faithfully reprises the nation's early patois: "Tumbledown had connived to scape the ravages of their Vessel's Capsize but Marlyebone was grazed over the bellyfront, and a Crown ball caromed his sister Virginia above the hip. She was truly near dead, so Tumbledown and Marlyebone hamperlegged Virginia between them. Gutshocked, windundered, brinesoaked, our three stopped in the Forestblankets to staunch wounds panting and shivering in the starlessness."

Religious pamphlets and homilies, and hair-raising tales of simple villagers brought to ruin at tasting the delights of the capital lead us in time to Sanjania's bloody revolution and the emergence of modern writing contesting the sexist and racist literature of empire.

Of course, Sanjania exists no more (or no less?) than Marlyebone; Pigeon Blackhat, "the most infamous whore in the portlands"; and Professor Saintfrancis, "that crippled genius, like an intellectual toreador, skewering Portlands crime by hearsay alone".

Marche (bravely) lets his Sanjanians tell their own tales, and what a passionate, gullible, extravagant, caring, duplicitous, and noble people they are. They show grace in their despair: "Many tears for many ugly men have been shed over that bit of ground, including my own for Goody, but not a salt drop spilled for Beacham's bones, unless someone happened to be eating pistachios and spit." They enjoy self-knowledge: "I was always vain, but my fourteenth year gave occasion to that vanity when I turned viewlysome." Above all, they revere writing and their own nation: "Eloquence runs through Sanjan like diamonds in Southern African states."

Marche, a half-time Torontonian, finishes with 40 pages of conjured Sanjan lit crit, but we don't need it: we already hear the island breezes. We already believe.

John Burns quizzes Stephen Marche on diverse Sanjanian facts at Shebeen Whisk(e)y House (9 Gaoler's Mews) on September 27, beginning at 7 p.m. Admission is free.