Event update: Murray Sinclair is currently in hospital and regrettably cannot participate in this event.
While we are saddened he is unable to join us, the event will feature audio of his readings from his new book Who We Are, alongside the conversation between Niigaan Sinclair and Tanya Talaga.
For decades, Senator Murray Sinclair, Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, has fearlessly educated Canadians about the truths of our history. In Who We Are, he shares his full story and vision for Canada. His son Niigaan Sinclair—one of the most influential thinkers in his own right on issues impacting Indigenous communities—joins us to discuss the ideas from Who We Are and his book Wînipêk (Winnipeg), a groundbreaking debut collection that illuminates the reality of Indigenous life throughout the country—and the change that’s needed. He speaks with critically acclaimed author Tanya Talaga, whose latest work, The Knowing,isa seminal unraveling of the centuries-long oppression of Indigenous people. What true, lasting decolonization means is at the forefront of political urgency in Canada. These exceptional minds and seekers of justice offer a powerful vision of how to move forward. Moderated by Tanya Talaga.
Presented in partnership with Talking Stick Festival.
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Event Participants:
NIIGAANWEWIDAM JAMES SINCLAIR is Anishinaabe (St. Peter’s/Little Peguis) and an Assistant Professor at the University of Manitoba. He is a regular commentator on Indigenous issues on CTV, CBC, and APTN, and his written work can be found in the pages of The Exile Edition of Native Canadian Fiction and Drama, newspapers like The Guardian, and online with CBC Books: Canada Writes. Niigaan is the co-editor of the award-winning Manitowapow: Aboriginal Writings from the Land of Water (Highwater Press, 2011) and Centering Anishinaabeg Studies: Understanding the World Through Stories (Michigan State University Press, 2013), and is the Editorial Director of The Debwe Series with Portage and Main Press. Niigan obtained his BA in Education at the University of Winnipeg, before completing an MA in Native- and African-American literatures at the University of Oklahoma, and a PhD in First Nations and American Literatures from the University of British Columbia.
TANYA TALAGA is of Anishinaabe and Polish descent and was born and raised in Toronto. She is a member of Fort William First Nation. Her mother was raised on the traditional territory of Fort William First Nation and Treaty 9. She is the acclaimed author of the national bestseller Seven Fallen Feathers, which won the RBC Taylor Prize, the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing and the First Nation Communities Read: Young Adult/Adult Award. A finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction and the BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, the novel was also CBC’s Nonfiction Book of the Year and a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book. Talaga was the 2017–2018 Atkinson Fellow in Public Policy and the 2018 CBC Massey Lecturer. She is also the author of the national bestseller All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward. For more than twenty years she was a journalist at the Toronto Star and is now a regular columnist at the Globe and Mail. Tanya Talaga is the founder of Makwa Creative, a production company formed to elevate Indigenous voices and stories.
