Celebrating authors, artists & great reads (2016)
This selection of books was made in honour of Aboriginal History and Indigenous Book Club month in June 2016 and features some of the Library's print and online books of relevance to Indigenous studies and issues. They include non-fiction, fiction, poetry, art, children's books, and even manga. We start with samples of works by Indigenous faculty here at Concordia, and go on to feature Canadian Aboriginal authors and artists as the key stars.
Decolonize me
Heather Igloliorte, curator and contributor
Heather Igliorte is Assistant Professor, Art History
The nature of empires and the empires of nature
Karl S. Hele, editor
Karl S. Hele is Associate Professor and Director of First Peoples Studies, School of Community and Public Affairs
Free to be Mohawk
Louellyn White
Louellyn White is Assistant Professor, First Peoples Studies, School of Community and Public Affairs
Coded territories
Jason Lewis, contributor
Jason Lewis is Professor of Computation Arts, Design and Computation Arts & University Research Chair in Computational Media and the Indigenous Future Imaginary
The strength of women : âhkamêyimowak
Priscilla Settee
Personal recollections by a wide spectrum of Aboriginal women.
Red skin, white masks : rejecting the colonial politics of recognition
Glen Sean Coulthard
Challenges recognition as a method of organizing difference and identity in liberal politics.
A night for the lady
Joanne Arnott
Each poem arises from conversations with poets, colleagues and intimate friends.
Native art of the Northwest Coast : a history of changing ideas
Charlotte Townsend-Gault, Jennifer Kramer, and Ḳi-ḳe-in
Records and scrutinizes definitions of Northwest Coast Native art and its boundaries.
Buffalo shout, salmon cry: conversations on creation, land justice, and life together
Steve Heinrichs, editor
Essays on land use, creation, history, and faith.
Shi-shi-etko
Nicola Campbell
A child has four days until she will have to leave her family and everything she knows to attend residential school.
A tale of monstrous extravagance : imagining multilingualism
Tomson Highway
Tomson Highway's Henry Kreisel Lecture on the importance of multilingualism.
Wasáse : indigenous pathways of action and freedom
Taiaiake Alfred
Wasáse is the Kanienkeha word for the ancient war dance ceremony of unity, strength, and commitment to action.
Aqueduct: Colonialism, Resources, and the Histories We Remember
Adele Perry
The development of Winnipeg's municipal water supply as an example of the history of settler colonialism.
Peace, power, righteousness : an indigenous manifesto
Taiaiake Alfred
Critique of Indigenous leaders and politics, and a sensitive reflection on the traumas of colonization.
Racism, colonialism, and indigeneity in Canada : a reader
Martin J. Cannon & Lina Sunseri
Explores how the interplay of racism and colonialism has shaped the lives of Indigenous people.
Native North American art
Janet Catherine Berlo & Ruth B. Phillips
Explores both shared themes and imagery, and distinctive traditions of each region.
Dancing on our turtle's back : stories of Nishnaabeg re-creation, resurgence and a new emergence
Leanne Simpson
Asserts reconciliation must be grounded in political resurgence.
Seekers and travellers : contemporary art of the Pacific Northwest Coast
Gary Wyatt
New works from 36 of the most acclaimed artists on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border.
Great writers from our First Nations
Kim Sigafus and Lyle Ernst
First Nations series for young readers.
Up Ghost River
Edmund Metatawabin with Alexandra Shimo
Metatawabin tells the story of his years as a child in one of Canada's worst residential schools.
The orenda
Joseph Boyden
A Jesuit missionary ventures into the Canadian wilderness in search of converts.
The Inconvenient Indian
Thomas King
A critical and personal meditation about what it means to be 'Indian' in North America.
Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont
Joseph Boyden
Boyden provides fresh, controversial insight into these two seminal Canadian figures.
The reason you walk
Wab Kinew
When his father was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Kinew decided to spend a year reconnecting.
Sanattiaqsimajut : Inuit art from the Carleton University Art Gallery collection
Sandra Dyck
Exhibition held Sept. 14-Nov. 8, 2009 at the Carleton University Art Gallery.
Medicine walk
Richard Wagamese
An unforgettable journey of a father and son, set in dramatic landscape of the BC Interior.
Isuma : Inuit video art
Michael Robert Evans
Brings Isuma's Arctic to life while positioning its efforts within indigenous media.
Unsettling the settler within : Indian residential schools, truth telling, and reconciliation in Canada
Paulette Regan
Argues that non-Aboriginal Canadians must undergo their own process of decolonization.
Dispersed but not destroyed : a history of the seventeenth-century Wendat people
Kathryn Magee Labelle
Turns the story of the Wendat conquest on its head.
Orphans in the sky
Jeanne Bushey
Account of the courage and loyalty experienced by two lonely orphans who find a home in the sky.
"Métis" : race, recognition, and the struggle for indigenous peoplehood
Chris Andersen
Argues that 'Métis' has become a racial category rather than the identity of an Indigenous people.
Teaching each other : Nehinuw concepts and Indigenous pedagogies
Linda M. Goulet and Keith N. Goulet
Provides an alternative framework for teachers working with Indigenous students.
Fatty legs : a true story
Christy Jordan-Fenton & Margaret Pokiak-Fenton
Plucky girl's determination to confront her tormentor. Will linger with young readers.
Mohawk interruptus : political life across the borders of settler states
Audra Simpson
A bold challenge to dominant thinking in the fields of Native studies and anthropology.
Islands of decolonial love : stories & songs
Leanne Simpson
Debut collection of short stories by renowned writer and activist Leanne Simpson.
Indigenous screen cultures in Canada
Sigurjón Baldur Hafsteinsson and Marian Bredin
Questions surrounding the power and suppression of indigenous narrative in contemporary indigenous media.
Life stages and native women : memory, teachings, and story medicine
Kim Anderson
Explores how life stages of Métis, Cree, and Anishinaabe women were integral to the well-being of their communities.
Seeing red : a history of Natives in Canadian newspapers
Mark Cronlund Anderson and Carmen L. Robertson
Examines the role of Canada’s newspapers in perpetuating the myth of Native inferiority.
Sanaaq: an Inuit novel
Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk
An Inuit family negotiating the changes brought into their community by the coming of the qallunaat.
Masculindians : conversations about indigenous manhood
Sam McKegney
What does it mean to be an Indigenous man today?
The Sasquatch at home : traditional protocols & modern storytelling
Eden Robinson
Fourth annual Henry Kreisel Lecture. An intimate look into the intricacies of family, culture, and place.
Métis in Canada : history, identity, law & politics
Christopher Adams
Twelve essays by scholars in the fields of history, anthropology, law, political science, and sociology.
Healing histories : stories from Canada's Indian hospitals
Laurie Meijer Drees
Oral accounts from patients, families, and workers who experienced Canada's Indian Hospital system.
Carl Beam : the poetics of being
Greg A. Hill
Fifty of Beam's works from his early career in the 1970s to the end of his production in the early 2000s.
Smash - international indigenous weaving : Salish, Mi'kmaq, Alaskan, Southwest, and Hawaiian artists
Rose M. Spahan, Cathi Charles Wherry
Exhibition held at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, B.C. April-Aug. 2010.
They called me number one : secrets and survival at an Indian residential school
Bev Sellars
Memoir about the lasting effects of of years at St. Joseph's Mission.
Clearing a path : new ways of seeing traditional indigenous art
Carmen Robertson & Sherry Farrell Racette
Introductory essays, photographs of exhibition pieces and artists statements from 21 participating artists.
Long powwow nights! : Iskewsis-- dear mother
Dave Bouchard and Pam Aleekuk
Children's book accompanied by a CD which includes music by acclaimed songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie.
Sewing our traditions : dolls of Canada's north
Yukon Arts Centre,
Exhibition held at the Gateway Theatre, Richmond, B.C., and at the Yukon Arts Centre, Whitehorse, in 2010.
Carrying on irregardless : humour in contemporary Northwest Coast art
Peter Morin, Martine J. Reid, Mike Robinson
Artworks that act as political weapons, bold challenges to stereotypes, and nods to the Trickster.
Social issues in contemporary Native America : reflections from Turtle Island
Hilary N. Weaver
Essays by leading Native American social workers, researchers, and academics.
The colonial problem : an Indigenous perspective on crime and injustice in Canada
Lisa Monchalin
Challenges the myth of the 'Indian problem' in the Canadian criminal justice system.
From recognition to reconciliation : essays on the constitutional entrenchment of Aboriginal and treaty rights
Patrick Macklem and Douglas Sanderson
Reflections on the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian state.
Alliances: Re/Envisioning Indigenous-non-Indigenous Relationships
Lynne Davis
Alliance-building for Indigenous rights and self-determination and for social and environmental justice.
Determinants of indigenous peoples' health in Canada : beyond the social
Margo Greenwood, Sarah de Leeuw, Nicole Marie Lindsay, and Charlotte Reading
Broadens the social determinants of health framework to better understand health inequality.
Kuessipan
Naomi Fontaine
A fictionalized, meditative chronicle of life among the Innu in rural northeastern Quebec.
Cultural memories and imagined futures : the art of Jane Ash Poitras
Pamela McCallum
Situates Poitras's work in the national context of Canadian First Nations art during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
When I was eight
Christy Jordan-Fenton & Margaret Pokiak-Fenton
Children's book based on the true story of Margaret Pokiak-Fenton.
Annie Pootoogook : Kinngait compositions
Jan Allen
Pootoogook's drawings offer an unflinching look at life in a community in transition.
Indian Horse : a novel
Richard Wagamese
Saul Indian Horse embarks on a marvelous journey of imagination back through the life he led as a northern Ojibway.
Inuit modern : the Samuel and Esther Sarick Collection
Gerald McMaster, Ingo Hessel, Dorothy Harley Eber
More than 175 works by seventy-five Inuit artists.
The gift is in the making : Anishinaabeg stories
Leanne Simpson
Retells previously published Anishinaabeg stories, bringing to life values and teachings to a new generation.
The Inuit thought of it : amazing Arctic innovations
Alootook Ipellie
More than 40 Inuit items and ideas showcased for young readers.
Birdie : a novel
Tracey Lindberg
Award-winning novel about the universal experience of recovering from wounds of the past.
Introduction to indigenous literary criticism in Canada
Heather Macfarlane and Armand Garnet Ruffo
The texts trace the development of Indigenous literatures while highlighting major trends and themes.
Troubling tricksters : revisioning critical conversations
Deanna Reder and Linda M. Morra, editors
A re-visioning of trickster criticism in light of recent backlash against it.
Histoires de Kanatha : vues et contées
Georges E.P. Sioui
The first collection written by an Aboriginal Canadian on the Aboriginal understanding of history and the colonial experience.
Unsettling Canada : a national wake-up call
Arthur Manuel and Grand Chief Ronald M. Derrickson
Describes the victories and failures of a generation of activists fighting for Aboriginal title and rights in Canada.
Red : a Haida manga
Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas
A cautionary tale about the devastating effects of rage and retribution.
One story, one song
Richard Wagamese
A collection of warm, wise and inspiring stories from the author of One Native Life.
Honouring tradition : reframing native art
Beth Carter ... [et al.]
Exhibition at the Glenbow Museum, Calgary, February 16 to July 13, 2008.
This is an honour song : an anthology of writing on the "Oka Crisis"
Leanne Simpson
A collection exploring the broad impact of the 1990 resistance at Kanehsatà:ke.
The qalupalik
Elisha Kilabuk
Beautifully illustrated children's book based on the work of a celebrated contemporary Inuit storyteller.
Creation and transformation : defining moments in Inuit art
Darlene Coward Wight
Exhibition held at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, Jan. 24 to April 7, 2013.
Interpellations : three essays on Kent Monkman
Michèle Thériault, Richard W. Hill, Jonathan D. Katz, Todd Porterfield
Addresses issues central to Monkman's activity, such as the interplay of identity, sexuality, and sovereignty.
Nadia Myre : en(counter)s
Nadia Myre
A multidisciplinary artist whose work explores themes of language, culture, and memory.
Women in charge : Inuit contemporary women artists
Elvira Stefania Tiberini
Exhibition held at the Museo Nazionale preistorico Etnografico 'Luigi Pigorini', Rome, Italy, Dec 2011.
Thank you to K-Lee Fraser for her valuable assistance in selecting these books.
To find additional relevant resources see our First Peoples Studies Subject Guide or try the Sofia Discovery tool.
If you come across more Indigenous Book Club Month shout outs or tweets for books and authors that what we're missing, let us know via our Suggest a Purchase form. In June 2017, we’ll feature a new selection of works, and we welcome your feedback on what to feature there too.
Indigenous Authors in the Spotlight Series
Inuit Testimony, Critique & Practice (Fall 2022)
Memoirs & Life Stories (Fall 2021)
Indigenous Feminisms (Spring/Summer 2020)
Science Fiction & Futurisms (Fall 2019)
Indigenous Poetry (Winter 2019)
Indigenous Knowledges and Research Methods (2018)
