My Conversations with Canadians

Literary Nonfiction. Native American Studies. 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 prose 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's 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. "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