In Honor of Indigenous Peoples Day, Here Are 7 Must-Reads By Native Authors
Whether you’re in the community and curious, or looking to become better informed about our lineage, creativity and cultures, I highly recommend checking out these meaningful and nuanced books — in honor of Indigenous Peoples Day and our culture that has persevered against all odds.
‘Bad Cree’ by Jessica Johns
This scintillating debut from Jessica Johns will place you in the dreams of our protagonist, a Cree woman who wakes up with a severed crow’s head in her hands. Mackenzie’s journey brings the reader through this horror, magical realist world where she is forced to confront her sister and kokum’s death, and return to her hometown and the family she has left to uncover what has been haunting her dreams.
NativeAuthors #Books #IndigenousPeoplesDay
‘Heart Berries’ by Terese Marie Mailhot
Mailhot’s coming-of-age story is one of a woman growing up on the Seabird Island Band in the Pacific Northwest. It was written on the heels of her own trauma, after she was hospitalized for post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder. “Heart Berries” powerfully acknowledges the dark history of colonization on Indigenous peoples and how that manifests in their mental and physical health.
‘Split Tooth’ by Tanya Tagaq
This unique read defies genres as the author paints a haunting, brooding and tender world filled with love, history, magic, myth and poetry. A seamless blend of memoir and fiction, the story revolves around a girl who grows up in Nunavut, where the land runs through her veins and the tumults of familial love oscillate between alcohol and magic. When the she becomes pregnant, the world grows stranger, and you’ll lose yourself in the plot.
Noopiming: The Cure For White Ladies’ by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Composed of both poetic & narrative fragments in a fierce reclamation of Anishinaabe aesthetics, ths novel is a tool of willful resistance to centuries-old colonial myth-making. Her world features seven main characters who struggle in the urban world and eventually seek nature, only to realize how changed and unnatural it has become. The novel's characters represent different aspects of Mashkawaji, the narrator frozen in ice.
‘Monkey Beach’ by Eden Robinson
Eden Robinson’s Lisamarie is haunted by darkness and followed by ravens as she sets off to search for her missing brother, Jimmy, through the Douglas Channel to Monkey Beach — an area famed for Sasquatch sightings. Robinson’s work of literary fiction blends magical realism with darkness and humor, teen culture, and Haisla lore into a multi-layered story traversing the British Columbia landscape.
‘Looking For Smoke’ by K.A. Cobell
This engrossing thriller explores the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls crisis through the main character, Loren, whose sister has gone missing. After she invites the new girl in town, Mara, to attend a Blackfeet giveaway ceremony honoring her grandfather, one of her best friends, Samantha White Tail, ends up dead.
‘The Knowing’ by Tanya Talaga
Since early 1800s, Indigenous families in Canada have been systematically disrupted through residential schools, the Sixties Scoop, Indian hospitals, and asylums. Tanya Talaga strikes readers with personal, yet deeply researched and moving words that explores the dark history of colonialism in Canada. “The Knowing” is a quest of finding out what happened to her great-great-grandmother, and in turn, a quest of understanding the unhealed wounds of Canada.