Indigenous Languages

Cherie Dimaline told us this book should be classified as R. Wait, that is for movies . . . Oh, same thing . . . Language, themes, violence, sex and portrayal of drug use may be offensive to some readers. Reader discretion is advised. What is all the ruckus about? Naomi, a Native chambermaid in a busy downtown hotel, amuses herself by imagining the past, present and future lives of five hotel guests, whom she observed in passing, in the hotel lobby and through relics left in their rooms. Struck by their remains, their footprints and their clues, Naomi patches them together to weave tales of infatuation, love, infidelity, illness, death and family.

Monkey Beach meets Green Grass, Running Water meets The Beachcombers in this wise and funny novel by a debut Cree author Birdie is a darkly comic and moving first novel about the universal experience of recovering from wounds of the past, informed by the lore and knowledge of Cree traditions.

When Stella, a young Métis mother, looks out her window one evening and spots someone in trouble on the Break -- a barren field on an isolated strip of land outside her house -- she calls the police to alert them to a possible crime. In a series of shifting narratives, people who are connected, both directly and indirectly, with the victim -- police, family, and friends -- tell their personal stories leading up to that fateful night. Through their various perspectives a larger, more comprehensive story about lives of the residents in Winnipeg's North End is exposed. A powerful intergenerational family saga, The Break showcases Vermette's abundant writing talent and positions her as an exciting new voice in Canadian literature.

Raw and honest, Bearskin Diary gives voice to a generation of First Nations women who have always been silenced, at a time when movements like Idle No More call for a national inquiry into the missing and murdered Aboriginal women. Carol Daniels adds an important perspective to the Canadian literary landscape.

The novel follows one girl, Martha, from the Cat Lake First Nation in Northern Ontario who is "stolen" from her family at the age of six and flown far away to residential school. She doesn't speak English but is punished for speaking her native language; most terrifying and bewildering, she is also "fed" to the school's attendant priest with an attraction to little girls. Ten long years later, Martha finds her way home again, barely able to speak her native tongue. The memories of abuse at the residential school are so strong that she tries to drown her feelings in drink, and when she gives birth to her beloved son, Spider, he is taken away by Children's Aid to Toronto. In time, she has a baby girl, Raven, whom she decides to leave in the care of her mother while she braves the bewildering strangeness of the big city to find her son and bring him home.

A story of magic, family, a mysterious stranger . . . and a band of marauding raccoons. nbsp; Otter Lake is a sleepy Anishnawbe community where little happens. Until the day a handsome stranger pulls up astride a 1953 Indian Chief motorcycle - and turns Otter Lake completely upside down. Maggie, the Reserve's chief, is swept off her feet, but Virgil, her teenage son, is less than enchanted. Suspicious of the stranger's intentions, he teams up with his uncle Wayne - a master of aboriginal martial arts - to drive the stranger from the Reserve. And it turns out that the raccoons are willing to lend a hand.

This poignant and powerful collection of short stories provides revealing glimpses into the life experiences of an Aboriginal woman, a university professor, an activist and a single mother. With lyrical eloquence, Lee Maracle takes the reader on a deeply stirring and emotional journey that is at times humorous and heart-wrenching but not soon to be forgotten.

In Dog Tracks, Ruby Slipperjack writes the story of those who return to the reserve and rediscover their culture. The book is both a celebration of Abby's youthful determination and a series of teachings about Anishinawbe traditions, history, and culture. Woven into Abby's narrative of self-discovery, and perhaps integral to it, are the teachings of Elders and parents, knowledge of hunting, fishing, berry-picking, and living on and with the land - all drawn from Slipperjack's own knowledge of the land and her people. Dog Tracks is a book that crosses genres: it is a tender story of an uprooted girl who finds home and self, and it is also a subtle text that gives readers a glimpse of traditional and non-traditional life on a northern Ontario reserve.

Monkey Beach combines both joy and tragedy in a harrowing yet restrained story of grief and survival, and of a family on the edge of heartbreak. In the first English-language novel to be published by a Haisla writer, Eden Robinson offers a rich celebration of life in the Native settlement of Kitamaat, on the coast of British Columbia. Monkey Beach is beautifully written, in prose that is simple and subtle, bold and vivid, and pervaded by humour. Robinson fills her novel with details of Haisla culture and the rich wildlife surrounding Kitamaat. She uses traditional elements of storytelling -- such as dreams, and people's ties to nature -- but also demystifies Native beliefs, simultaneously peeling away and intensifying the mystery surrounding spirits.

The second novel by renowned Okanagan author Jeannette Armstrong traces the life of a young Native woman on a reserve who is exposed to pesticides while working as a fruit picker in the Okanagan Valley.Whispering in Shadows provides a glimpse into the complexities of the contemporary life and psyche of Aboriginal peoples. The novel conveys an important environmental theme and insights into the future as well.

In this powerful and often very funny first novel, Richard Van Camp gives us one of the most original teenage characters in fiction. Skinny as spaghetti, nervy and self-deprecating, Larry is an appealing mixture of bravado and vulnerability. His past holds many terrors: an abusive father, blackouts from sniffing gasoline, an accident that killed several of his cousins. But through his friendship with Johnny, he's ready now to face his memories--and his future. Marking the debut of an exciting new writer, The Lesser Blessed is an eye-opening depiction of what it is to be a young Native man.

Welcome to the town of Blossom—part myth, part hilariously off-kilter reality. Green Grass, Running Water is the story of five Blackfoot Indians whose existences connect in ways that are at once coincidental, comical and cosmic. This is a rich tale, weaving magical humour, revisionist history, nostalgia and myth into one bright whole.
Green Grass, Running Water’s timeless appeal has kept it flying off bookstore shelves since it was published in 1993.