My Conversations With Canadians

Shortlisted for the 2018 Toronto Book Award
Shortlisted for the First Nation Communities READ 2018-2019 Award

On her first book tour at the age of 26, Lee Maracle was asked a question from the audience, one she couldn’t possibly answer at that moment. But she has been thinking about it ever since. As time has passed, she has been asked countless similar questions, all of them too big to answer, but not too large to contemplate. These questions, which touch upon subjects such as citizenship, segregation, labour, law, prejudice and reconciliation, to name a few, are the heart of My Conversations with Canadians.

In essays that are both conversational and direct, Maracle seeks not to provide any answers to these questions she has lived with for so long. Rather, she thinks through each one using a multitude of experiences she has had as a First Nations leader, a woman, a mother, and grandmother over the course of her life. Lee Maracle’s My Conversations with Canadians presents a tour de force exploration into the writer’s own history and a reimagining of the future of our nation.

AUTHOR

Lee Maracle

Lee Maracle is an author and critic born in Vancouver. A prolific First Nations writer and expert on First Nations culture and history, Lee Maracle is an influential Aboriginal voice in Canadian postcolonial criticism.

Reviews

“By inviting us into her home, Maracle reminds us that we inhabit someone else’s space. We come to see that maybe we are the problem and that reconciliation is not a solution—not without restitution.” —The UC Observer

“In these pages, Maracle develops a relationship with her audience that feels intuitive and intimate, yet weaves together something far more comprehensive than any interview or conversation could provide.” —Maisonneuve

“As challenging as these ‘conversations’ may be for some Canadians, the harshness pales in comparison to the abuses endured at residential schools. Readers will not be stripped naked, deloused, and then shaved bald on their first day of school. Only the readers’ false notions will be stripped away.” —Hamilton Review of Books

“Maracle, never one to hold back, is an unblinking observer of First Nations experience and seizes the moment—specifically the occasion of Canada’s 150th birthday—to release this collection of essays… A unique voice worth heeding.” —NOW Magazine

“A very timely work in the era of the botched Canada 150 celebrations and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women inquiry… a powerful and thought provoking read. Highly recommended.” —Vancouver Sun