Tanya Talaga

Bookmark and UPEI’s Faculty of Indigenous Knowledge, Education, Research, and Applied Studies welcome Tanya Talaga to Charlottetown for the launch of her new book, The Knowing, on November 7 at 7 pm in the UPEI Performing Arts Centre. The evening will be moderated by Jenene Wooldridge, Executive Director of L’nuey.

The Knowing is an exploration of Talaga’s family story and a retelling of the history of the country we now call Canada. For generations, Indigenous peoples have known that their family members disappeared—many sent to residential schools, “Indian hospitals,” and asylums through a coordinated system designed to destroy who First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples are. This is one of Canada’s greatest open secrets—an unhealed wound that, until recently, lay hidden by shame and abandonment.

Talaga retells this history through an Indigenous lens, beginning with the life of her great-great-grandmother, Annie Carpenter, and her family as they experienced decades of government- and Church-sanctioned enfranchisement and genocide. Deeply personal and meticulously researched, The Knowing is a seminal unravelling of the centuries-long oppression of Indigenous peoples that continues to reverberate in these communities today. 

Of Anishinaabe and Polish descent, Talaga was born and raised in Toronto and is a member of Fort William First Nation. 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. She is also the author of the national bestseller All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward. For more than 20 years, she was a journalist at the Toronto Star and is now a regular columnist at the Globe and Mail. Talaga is the founder of Makwa Creative, a production company formed to elevate Indigenous voices and stories.

Anyone who wishes to engage in Truth and Reconciliation are encouraged to attend this conversation. The free, ticketed event is open to everyone. Tickets are available online at bookmarkreads.ca/events or by calling 902-566-4888. The event will discuss a number of challenging topics, including but not limited to historical traumas, the Residential School System, sexual abuse, and suicide.