An Anthology of Canadian Native Literature in English

by Daniel David Moses (Editor), Terrry Goldie (Editor)

This second edition of the now standard survey of writing in English by Canadian native people brings together a broad range of works, from traditional songs and historical documents to short stories, plays, poems, and essays. The new edition includes fourteen new writers.

Genres: Anthologies, Fiction, Literature, Canada

529 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[Lollita · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to buy this for a class it cost 110$ we read one poem one play and one short story... so I read most of it on my own gradually, I'm glad I did most of it was quite good.

[Tibaiv · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book was so amazing.

[Glen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the first edition which is shorter than the one pictured here. There is a good opening essay by the editors explaining the need for the anthology and their principles of selection. The author biographies are also helpful. Of the selections themselves I thought the ones by Tomson Highway and Jordan Wheeler, Cree and Metis, respectively, were especially strong, but there is something for almost any taste here, including songs from Buffy Saint Marie. There is a lot of justified anger in these pages, but also humor, irony, delight in land and family, the gamut of human emotions one would expect to see in a survey of national literature, or should I say first nations' literature.

[Eve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Studied this book back in the 1990's during my university days. Excellent collection of short stories and poems from a variety of Indigenous authors.

[Caley Brennan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not a canon of Indigenous literature nor intended to be, but an amazing selection of beautiful and moving writing in semi-chronological order spanning a variety of genres. I’m so glad I read this.

[Jeff Cliff · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars, but hard to rate this one. Some of it is unencumbered by copyright (up until around page 40). Some of it isn't. Some of it I'm predisposed to just give it a high rating out of mercy, given I'm pretty pale and it documents some pretty terrible things us whiteys have done to native culture. Some of it seemed a bit...haute for me & I didn't like at all. And then some of it is some of the more important words I've ever read, stuff that I think I should definitely have read by now. It's a mix.

Which makes sense: given it is a bit of a taster of various native authors, including a couple I've already read, or similar enough to & citing those I've read. As such - it is an entry point, a possibly good first stop on a journey into native culture and literature for those who have no clue but have a little curiosity - not an endpoint. Similar to Time for True Tales in the sense that there's a lot of little stories, that give a taste of what else there was, or is to be found. And a sense for the scope of what was lost as white, canadian culture has both systematically and haphazardly, accidentally and purposefully destroyed. So many stories that will never be told, whole ways of looking at things that are just gone. It puts into words some of the extent of that loss. As far as that goes, I can see why this kind of book might be made mandatory reading as part of a Native Studies 101 or 30 course in highschool or university in saskatchewan, say. Especially by the university level, in saskatchewan, this sort of thing should really be required reading. Maybe not this book, specifically, but something like it.

One thing that has definitely changed since these stories were written, and this book was published, is how white/european canada was. This has definitely been slowly changing with time, and with the exception of one story (where the author lamented living in a honcouver with a hundred thousand chinese people around them, but not bothering to learn their culture or really know them at all), all of these stories represented a canada that wasn't differentiated between white english/french canadian/native and...other. Seeing old books with old stories like this is increasingly a shock with time as it shows clearly something has changed here.

[谢林 Schelling · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t mean this in any condescending way, of course. All of the short stories really give out beautiful tinges of naïveté. More structurally than linguistically, I’d say.

Calling it experimental would be very very wrong, but it surely is full of narratives completely alien to the commercial world. And those are what we need.

[kp · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must read for people interested in Canadian or Indigenous literature.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection that is easily accessible. I wish they would have included original publication years for the works, and I find it odd they were left out.

[Care · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I didn't read this entire thing (it's massive), what I read was at least book length so I think it counts. There are tons of great pieces worth reading in this book. My favourite was probably Rita Jo's "I Lost my Talk" or Jeanette Armstrong's "History Lesson."