A few days ago I attended an interview with Indigenous writer and CBC host of Up North, Waubgeshig Rice. I had recently read his latest novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow, and was looking forward to hear the writer discuss his dystopian saga set in the Rez, after the sudden crash of electricity, internet, and all communications. By coincidence, my nonfiction Book Club’s selection for this month is Waub Kinew’s biographical work, The Reason You Walk.
Both books deal with what the writers term the native apocalypse. Kinew relates the effects the institution had on his own father and his ensuing inability to be a father to Waub and his siblings as a result. Rice, meanwhile, has created an allegorical apocalypse, which, the way the climate crisis is progressing, has the chilling tinge of real possibility all through its narrative.
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