Conrad 1
Tell Me a Story: Exploring modern First Nations, Métis, and Inuit authors in Canada
Introduction
It all started with The Inconvenient Indian. Actually, maybe it started back in 2013 with The
Orenda. Perhaps it never “started” at all, but instead gradually grew on its own over time, fed by curiosity and evolving from a shadow, to a reality, to a question. “Are works by First Nations,
Métis, and Inuit authors becoming more popular in Canada?”
From Thomas King’s The Inconvenient Indian, nominated for Canada Reads in 2015, to
Joseph Boyden the author gaining as much mainstream attention as the books he writes, works by First Nations, Métis, and Inuit authors in Canada appear to be increasingly popular. In setting out to determine if this is true, an answer was found quickly and easily. In her book Dhuuluu-
Yala, Wiradjuri author Anita M. Heiss says that “many now see the emergence of contemporary
First Nations’ authors onto the literary scene in Canada as the major development in the literature of North America in the last three decades” (155). According to Heiss, this increase followed the political movements of the 1960s and 70s (155). Eventually, after a dip in the 80s, it Indigenous literature evolved into what Lee Maracle calls “the contemporary Aboriginal voice” (Heiss, 156).
After accepting that works by First Nations, Métis, and Inuit authors are becoming more popular, one must ask how and why. Is this a media-driven agenda, or are readers discovering these books on their own?
To simply read a book is not enough of an education or an action. The road to reconciliation may be paved by many good intentions, but the notion of the settler “move to Conrad 2 innocence” looms. The terminology was used by Janey Mawhinney in her 1998 Master of Arts thesis at the University of Toronto and subsequently applied to decolonization by Eve Tuck and
K. Wayne Yang in Decolonization is not a metaphor. Chelsea Vowel also references this term in
Indigenous Writes, A Guide to First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Issues in Canada, where says that
““becoming the Native” furthers colonial erasure of Indigenous peoples” (46). More related ideas were explored by Philip Deloria, as part of what he calls “playing Indian”. It is Tuck and
Wang who say, “Directly and indirectly benefitting from the erasure and assimilation of
Indigenous peoples is a difficult reality for settlers to accept. The weight of this reality is uncomfortable; the misery of guilt makes one hurry toward any reprieve” (9). In other words, consuming and indeed championing books by Indigenous authors could be seen as a way to absolve settler guilt with regard to transgressions committed against First Nations, Métis, and
Inuit peoples. Many well-meaning settler communities and groups are eager to approach reconciliation with those who populated Canada long before colonization. However, questions must be asked about how and why these offerings are being made, and by whom.
The question now becomes not simple “Are works by Canadian Indigenous authors becoming more popular?” but in fact, “How does Canada present the works of its modern
Indigenous authors?” It is essential to consider the colonial nature of literature itself.
Indigenous literature has a past that is divergent from Eurocentric models of short stories, novels, poetry and screenplays. To look at modern Aboriginal works as part of the broader landscape of contemporary Canadian literature is, still, to examine them through a colonial framework. To maximize cultural understanding, these works need to be viewed as part of the
Indigenous nation and community from which they originate (Vowel, 94). Conrad 3
Research
While literary prizes are specific to a certain subsection of literature and are a subsequently small view of “popularity”, they provide a starting point from which to view changes and trends in Canada for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous works. Data used for analysis was gathered from the biggest three prizes in Canada—“biggest” meaning largest in the most objective way, as in worth the most money. Canada’s largest is the Scotiabank Giller
Prize ($100,000) followed by The Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize ($25,000) and Governor
General’s Literary Awards (also worth $25,000). The Wikipedia pages for each list comprehensive details dating back to 1994 for the Giller Prize, 1997 for the Writers’ Trust, and
1936 for the Governor General’s. This project focuses on the years 1997-2016.
Methodology
For each of the three prizes, the name and book of the author was recorded, as well as whether they won or not. Determining the Aboriginal heritage of individual authors was less straightforward. Diversity of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit language and culture means there are a number of ways to approach and define identity. There is no a widespread acceptable term for Indigenous peoples because each First Nation is a distinct society, the Red River and other Métis have many families, the Inuit are a specific community. How to proceed?
Considering the nature of contemporary digital society, most of the authors nominated for these prizes have a Wikipedia page (97%). This project assumes they are aware of their own
Wikipedia page and the biographic information contained therein. To determine ancestry, individual Wikipedia pages were read for each 179 unique nominee. In looking for any connection to nationhood, six were found--Sandra Birdsell (Métis), Eden Robinson Conrad 4
(Haisla/Heiltsuk), Joseph Boyden (Anishinaabe), Drew Hayden Taylor (Ojibwa), Thomas King
(Cherokee), and Katherena Vermette (Métis). To double-check this work and reinforce finding from the manual research process, a list of Aboriginal Authors compiled by the University of
Saskatchewan was consulted. Results from Wikipedia were compared to the Fiction and Non-
Fiction lists from the University of Saskatchewan to ensure no missing information. Five authors did not have Wikipedia pages, and their names are marked with an asterisk. Biographical information from their publisher was used instead
Interpreting and expressing ancestral background as effectively and objectively as possible required the creation of three rules. Because each author’s biography was read individually, it was also possible to take notes on other non-Indigenous and non-Canadian backgrounds.
1. Any specific reference a First Nation, Métis or Inuit community is considered
“Indigenous”.
2. Any author who predominantly cited “Canadian” was labelled as such, except when
having a connection to a First Nation, or Métis or Inuit community.
3. Any author who cited other ancestry with the same frequency as Canadian was
marked as such.
Again, these are the most prominent affiliations are made within the author’s Wikipedia page as categorized for this project, and are not all-encompassing. Indeed, it ignores many ancestral backgrounds and homogenizes many first-generation Canadians. It assumes reflexive knowledge on the part of the author and/or their publisher. It assimilates many authors who lived in another country for most of their lives, or moved to work outside of Canada later in life Conrad 5 and it does not consider the non-Indigenous backgrounds of those First Nations, Métis, or Inuit authors with mixed ancestry. The intent is not to dismiss or generalize the ancestral background of any person, settler or Aboriginal, but rather to obtain a manageable, intelligently sourced and ethically considered data set to work with.
Part A
Once obtained, data was transcribed into Excel and scatter-graphed with the year plotted along the X-axis and number of nominations on the Y-axis. The graph “Nominations for
Top 3 Canadian Literary Prizes 1997-2016” compares the total number of nominations (around
15 per year; each prize usually has 5 nominations, with a few exceptions), the number of unique nominations (some authors were nominated more than once per year for the same novel but for different prizes, and it is important to note this only counts as one, for reasons forthcoming), the number of non-Indigenous authors nominated (based on the same research methods of counting each author only once per year) and number of Indigenous authors nominated (one author once per year). The graph “Indigenous and Non-Indigenous
Nominations for Top 3 Canadian Literary Prizes 1997-2016” is as above but removes the total number of nominations and number of unique nominations to more clearly display the data at the heart of this analysis. The choice to use the number of unique nominations instead of total nominations was made to compare the number of First Nations, Métis or Inuit authors with those of Canadian/other backgrounds over time to see if what Heiss says about the emergence of Indigenous works and literary scene in Canada over the last 30 years is reflected in our literary prizes.
Conrad 6
Part B
The second part of this project compares events of reconciliation to literary prize nominations, in order to evaluate the settler “move to innocence”. Instead of the unique number, the total number of nominations each year was used. This means that if an author with First Nations, Métis or Inuit ancestry was nominated twice in one year for two different prizes, both are counted. This method was chosen to analyze the number of instances in relation to events on the timelines of reconciliation in an effort to investigate further into the theory that works by authors with First Nations, Métis or Inuit ancestry may be championed by the media or other industries as Canada as a way to absolve settler guilt.
Data and Interpretation
Part A
Conrad 7
They say “a picture is worth 1000 words”. As one can see, there has been no increase in popularity of works by First Nations, Métis, or Inuit authors over the last 19 years. If what Heiss says is true and “many see the emergence of contemporary First Nations’ authors onto the literary scene in Canada as the major development in the literature of North America in the last three decades” (155), the top three literary prizes in Canada show no indication of this.
Dhuuluu-Yala was published in 2003, right in the middle of this data set. Coincidently, not a single Indigenous author was nominated for one of the studied literary prizes that year, nor the year before or after.
Out of 179 unique authors, six are from a First Nation, are Métis, or are Inuit. Actually, no Inuit authors were actually discovered in this research. To do the math, 6 out 179 equals
3%. 3% of authors nominated for one of Canada’s top 3 literary prizes are of First Nations,
Métis, or Inuit ancestry, with no notable increase over time or other mathematical or spatial correlation to speak of.
Conrad 8
At least 31 of the 179 total authors, or about 17%, (more than 5.5 times the number of authors from First Nations, Métis, or Inuit heritage) list other ancestral backgrounds as predominantly as Canadian.
Canadian/American 6 Canadian/Irish 3 Canadian/British 3 Canadian/Trinidadian 3 Canadian/Sri Lankan 2 One each: Barbarian, Chinese, German, Indian, Israeli, Jamaican, Kenyan/Tanzanian, Lebanese, South African, Spanish, Vietnamese.
7 of the 58 prizes awarded over the last 20 years have gone to one of these 31 authors, or
12%. Winners from First Nations, Métis, or Inuit heritage include only Anishinaabe Joseph
Boyden (2005 and 2008) and Thomas King from the Cherokee nation (2014); arguably two of the Canadian authors best known for having Indigenous ancestry and discussing this in their work. Between the two, they earned 3 of 58 prizes, or 5%; less than half than those of other mixed backgrounds.
Of note: Two authors whose other works dealt with issues surrounding First Nations, Métis, or Inuit peoples--John Vaillant, nominated for the Writer’s Trust in 2015 wrote another book about the felling of Kiidk'yaas on Haida Gwaii by Grant Hadwin, and Kim Echlin, wrote her doctoral thesis at York University on the translation of the Ojibway Nanabush myths.
Part B
Two timelines with events pertaining to reconciliation were consulted. “FNESC” indicates information from the First Nations Education Steering Committee timeline, and
“Rogers” refers to information from Apology and Reconciliation: A Timeline of Events
(Aboriginal Healing Foundation), concerning residential school events. No connection can be Conrad 9 made between events and number nominated, partly due to the vast scope of issues to consider and partly due to the lack of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit representation in literary prize nominations.
Total Awards Year Reconciliation Event Nominations Won Royal Commission on Aboriginal People Final 1996 0 0 Report/National Aboriginal Day declared (FNESC/Rogers) 1997 1 0 Government’s Statement of Reconciliation gathering 1998 0 0 strength/United Church of Canada issues 2nd apology (Rogers) 1999 0 0 Nisga’a Treaty signed (FNESC) 2000 2 0 2001 1 0 Presbyterian Church settles Indian residential school 2002 0 0 compensation/Government announces Alternative Dispute Resolution Framework (Rogers) Canadian and Anglican church reach residential school 2003 0 0 settlement agreement (Rogers) 2004 0 0 Honourable Frank Iacobucci appointed to lead discussions toward lasting resolution of legacy of Indian residential 2005 2 1 schools/Supreme Court decision re: United Church run school/Government signs Agreement-in-Principle (Rogers) Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement/ Nunavut 2006 0 0 compensation approval(FNESC/Rogers) Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement comes into 2007 0 0 effect (Rogers) Government of Canada apologizes to former residential school students/Truth and Reconciliation Commission 2008 1 1 created, chairperson and commissioners appointed in April and May. Chairperson resigns in October. (FNESC/Rogers) 2009 0 0 TRC replaces chair and two commissioners (Rogers) 2010 2 0 2011 0 0 2012 0 0 2013 1 0 5-year mandate of TRC ends (Rogers) 2014 1 1 2015 0 0 Truth and Reconciliation Commission Final Report (FNESC) 2016 2 0
Conrad 10
Conclusion and Further Directions
Conclusions drawn are bleak and twofold—Heiss’ claim that “many now see the emergence of contemporary First Nations’ authors onto the literary scene in Canada as the major development in the literature of North America in the last three decades” is either untrue or simply not reflected in Canadian literary awards. In addition, because no increase was seen, no increase along with reconciliation events could be found.
Inexcusably but inherently colonial in their nature to begin with, it should be noted that all three prizes are sponsored by major corporations; Scotiabank for the Giller, Rogers for the
Writers’ Trust and the Governor General’s has thirteen “Partner” sponsors. What does this say about the objectivity of the prizes and who may be sitting on their juries?
The disassociation between the perceived popularity of stories by First Nations, Métia, and Inuit authors, Anita M. Heiss’ statement in Dhuuluu-Yala, and the actual results remains unclear. Are stories being marketed as Indigenous because it looks good, and are authors in turn writing or submitting stories that are more likely to be published because of the nature of the Canadian publishing industry? In an e-mail to Anita M. Heiss, Bob Rock said, “The Indian Act has created a certain type of “Indian Act Indians” that has been processed and groomed and prepared and brainwashed into becoming even more bureaucratic…” (158). Even if this is true, it doesn’t seem to be working.
The only immediate answer seems to be a focus on awards specifically for First Nations,
Métis and Inuit authors. While further separating these groups from settler populations, it may be best, and considers that the nature of major prizes may be inherently flawed or too antiquated and well-established to change anytime soon. In the absence of waiting for a shift, it Conrad 11 is more important than ever for works by Indigenous authors to be recognized so that more people read them and so that more authors get this prize money. It’s not easy to make a living as a writer, and a significant win could be the financial security an artist needs to proceed. The
Burt Award for First Nations, Métis, and Inuit literature is the biggest in Canada, and is only worth $12,000.
While every effort was taken to ensure this project was done in a fair and objective manner, there is room for more exacting study and analysis into this data and the methods that were used to obtain it. There is much work to reference, many more journals written on the topic, and mountains of scholarly research to delve into—frankly, this project created more questions than answering them. One thing for sure, is that the emergency of contemporary First Nations,
Métis, and Inuit authors has not been recognized by the top three literary prizes in Canada.
Now that we know, what can we do about it?
Conrad 12
WORKS CITED
Aboriginal Healing Foundation (Canada), Shelagh Rogers, Mike DeGagné, and Jonathan Dewar.
Speaking My Truth: Reflections On Reconciliation & Residential School. Book club ed.
Ottawa: Aboriginal Healing Foundation, 2012.
CODE. "Burt Award for First Nations, Inuit and Métis Literature." Burt Award for First Nations,
Inuit & Métis Literature. CODE, n.d. Web. 4 Dec. 2016.
Deloria, P. (1998). Playing Indian. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
First Nations Education Steering Committee. The Road to Reconciliation Timeline,
http://www.fnesc.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/IRSR10-BM12.pdf. Accessed 2
Dec. 2016.
Heiss, Anita M. Dhuuluu-yala = to Talk Straight: Publishing Indigenous Literature. Canberra:
Aboriginal Studies, 2003.
Mawhinney, J. (1998). 'Giving up the ghost': Disrupting the (re)production of white privilege in
anti-racist pedagogy and organizational change. Masters Thesis, Ontario Institutue for
Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. Available at:
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape15/PQDD_0008/MQ33991.pdf
The University of Saskatchewan. Aboriginal Research Resources, Aboriginal Authors: Fiction,
2012, http://library.usask.ca/indigenous/holdings/index.php. Accessed 8 Nov. 2016.
The University of Saskatchewan. Aboriginal Research Resources, Aboriginal Authors: Non-
Fiction, 2012, http://library.usask.ca/indigenous/holdings/az_list-non-fiction.php.
Accessed 8 Nov. 2016.
Tuck, Eve, and K. Wayne Yang. "Decolonization is not a metaphor." Decolonization: Indigeneity,
Education & Society 1.1 (2012). Conrad 13
Vowel, Chelsea. Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis & Inuit Issues in Canada.
Winnipeg, MB: HighWater, 2016. Print.
Wikipedia contributors. "Governor General's Award for English-language fiction." Wikipedia,
The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 25 Oct. 2016. Web. 25 Oct.
2016.
Wikipedia contributors. "Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 8 Nov. 2016. Web. 8 Nov. 2016.
Wikipedia contributors. "Scotiabank Giller Prize." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia,
The Free Encyclopedia, 8 Nov. 2016. Web. 8 Nov. 2016.