14 great Canadian memoirs to read now

Memoirs let us into the inner lives and momentous moments of writers, athletes, artists and thinkers. On Aug. 31, celebrate national We Love Memoirs Day by checking out these titles by Canadian writers.

There Is No Blue by Martha Baillie

There Is No Blue is a memoir comprising three essays about three significant losses Martha Baillie experienced. It's a response to the death of her mother, father and sister along as ruminations on what made them so alive. 

• The best Canadian nonfiction of 2023

Baillie is a Toronto-based writer. Her novel The Incident Report was on the 2009 Giller Prize longlist and is being made into a film. Her other books include Sister Language and The Search for Heinrich Schlögel.

The Heart of a Superfan by Nav Bhatia

Nav Bhatia is known as the Toronto Raptors's number one fan. In The Heart of a Superfan, he tells his story of hardship and determination as he faces challenges in India and Canada as an immigrant. The book explores how he came to connect with basketball more than with any other sport through inspiration and community and the role it played in his life's personal success.

• Raptors superfan Nav Bhatia's story is bigger than basketball

Bhatia is a business owner and the founder of The Nav Bhatia Superfan foundation, which aims to unite people through basketball around the world. He is the first non-basketball player to receive a NBA championship ring and is honoured in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. 

My Fighting Family by Morgan Campbell

My Fighting Family is a detailed history of one family's battles across the generations and reckons with what it means being a Black Canadian with strong American roots. Sports journalist and writer Morgan Campbell traces his family's roots in the rural American south to their eventual cross-border split and the grudges and squabbles along the way.

From the South Side of Chicago in the 1930s to the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War and Campbell's life dealing with the racial tensions in Canada — My Fighting Family is about journeying to find clarity in conflict.

• 20 Canadian books that represent fatherhood

Campbell is an Ontario-based journalist and a senior contributor at CBC Sports. He was a journalist at the Toronto Star for over 18 years. His work highlights where sports intersect with off-the-field issues like race, culture, politics and business. His memoir My Fighting Family is his first book.

My Mother's Daughter by Perdita Felicien

Perdita Felicien's mom Catherine was a poor young woman in St. Lucia when she was given a seemingly random, but ultimately life-changing, opportunity: to come to Canada with a wealthy white family and become their nanny. But when she gets to Canada, life is tougher than she expected, as she endures poverty, domestic violence and even homelessness. However, she still encourages and supports her youngest daughter's athletic dreams. Felicien would go on to be a world-class hurdler and one of Canada's greatest track athletes. My Mother's Daughter is the story of these two women, and how their love for each other got them through difficult times and changed their lives.

• 'I never talked about it and I am now:' Perdita Felicien on growing up in poverty

Felicien was a 10-time national champion, a two-time Olympian and became the first Canadian woman to win a gold medal at a world championships. She now works as a sports broadcaster and is part of CBC's team covering the Olympics. My Mother's Daughter is her first book.

Best Young Woman Job Book by Emma Healey

Best Young Woman Job Book is a linked collection of essays which examine Emma Healey's long-held aim to be a writer through the lens of the jobs, relationships and other formative experiences that have shaped her as a person and as an artist, it's by turns frank and funny — and often both at the same time.

• Canada Reads champion and Jeopardy! superstar Mattea Roach recommends 3 'must-read' memoirs

Healey is a Toronto-based writer and poet. Her books include the poetry collections Stereoblind and Begin With the End in Mind.

LISTEN | Mattea Roach chats about the power of memoirs on The Next Chapter:

The Next Chapter14:38Jeopardy! and Canada Reads winner Mattea Roach recommends three must-read memoirs

Trivia expert and host of the Backbench podcast Mattea Roach shares three memoir recommendations with The Next Chapter’s Ali Hassan: Joan Didion's Where I Was From, Emma Healey's Best Young Women Job Book and Michelle Zauner's Crying in H Mart.

Motherlike by Katherine Leyton

In her feminist memoir Motherlike, Katherine Leyton blends her personal experiences as a new mother with cultural commentary and historical research. From the challenges of labour and the objectification of women's bodies to the history of the birth control pill, she looks at motherhood as an essential part of human life that is often dismissed in society.

• 20 Canadian books that represent motherhood

Leyton is a nonfiction writer, poet and screenwriter from Toronto. Her first book of poetry All the Gold Hurts My Mouth won the 2018 ReLit Award for poetry.

Mamaskatch by Darrel J. McLeod​

Darrel J. McLeod's Mamaskatch is a memoir of his upbringing in Smith, Alta., raised by his fierce Cree mother, Bertha. McLeod describes vivid memories of moose stew and wild peppermint tea, surrounded by siblings and cousins. From his mother, McLeod learned to be proud of his heritage and also shares her fractured stories from surviving the residential school system.

Mamaskatch won the 2018 Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction and was longlisted for Canada Reads in 2024.

• How writing about his difficult childhood helped Darrel J. McLeod heal — and help others in the process

McLeod is Nehiyaw (Cree) writer from treaty eight territory in northern Alberta. His latest book is the novel A Season in Chezgh'un. McLeod lives in Sooke, B.C., and Puerto Vallarta. 

Bedroom Rapper by Rollie Pemberton

Rollie Pemberton is best known by his stage name, Cadence Weapon. His memoir, Bedroom Rapper, intertwines his own personal journey in the music industry with an in-depth exploration of the history of hip-hop. 

• Rollie Pemberton's memoir Bedroom Rapper presents an alternate history of Canadian hip hop

Pemberton is an Alberta rapper, poet, journalist and on-air personality. He won the 2021 Polaris Prize for his album Parallel World. His writing has been published in Pitchfork, The Guardian, Wired and Hazlitt. Currently based in Toronto, Pemberton was a former poet laureate for Edmonton.

LISTEN | Rollie Pemberton on his memoir Bedroom Rapper:

The Next Chapter11:42Canadian rap artist Cadence Weapon gives us his take on the history of Hip-Hop and how he found his creative voice. (Encore: February 17, 2023)

Rollie Pemberton- AKA Cadence Weapon- dives into the music industry's machinations, weaving his own story with the history of hip-hop and rap, in his memoir Bedroom Rapper: Cadence Weapon on Hip-Hop, Resistance, and Surviving the Music Industry.

Crooked Teeth by Danny Ramadan

Crooked Teeth is Danny Ramadan's memoir that refutes the oversimplified refugee narrative and transports readers on an epic and often fraught journey from Damascus to Cairo, Beirut and Vancouver. Told with nuance and fearless intimacy about being a queer Syrian-Canadian, Crooked Teeth revisits parts of Ramadan's past he'd rather forget. 

• Danny Ramadan gets raw and real in his new memoir Crooked Teeth

Ramadan is a Vancouver-based Syrian-Canadian author and advocate. His debut novel The Clothesline Swing was longlisted for Canada Reads in 2018 and his second novel The Foghorn Echoes won a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction.

LISTEN | Danny Ramadan on The Next Chapter: 

The Next Chapter19:32Danny Ramadan on seeking refuge and acceptance

Vancouver-based author Danny Ramadan tells his story in Crooked Teeth: A Queer Syrian Refugee Memoir. He discusses facing persecution in his home country, and seeking refuge in Canada in hopes of succeeding as a free and fulfilled young queer man.

Never Better by Gonzalo Riedel

The memoir Never Better chronicles Gonzalo Riedel's life from meeting the woman who would become his wife, to her getting sick and then as a widower with two young children. It tackles difficult subjects like how to keep his wife's memory alive for his two boys when their mother died before their second son even turned one.

• 26 works of Canadian nonfiction coming out in spring 2024

Riedel is a Winnipeg-based writer and editor. Never Better is his debut book. Riedel was recently announced as one of the readers for the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize.

LISTEN | Gonzalo Riedel chats with Nadia Kidwai about grief and parenthood:

The Weekend Morning Show (Manitoba)20:23On grief and humour: Single dad shares his story of parenting after loss

A local writer faces his grief head-on with a new memoir, "Never Better: Two Kids, Their Dad, and His Wife's Ghost." Weekend Morning Show host, Nadia Kidwai, speaks with Gonzalo Riedel about single-parenting two young infants while dealing with the death of his wife.

Outspoken by Sima Samar, with Sally Armstrong

In her memoir Outspoken, Sima Samar recounts her journey from agreeing to an arranged marriage to be able to attend university to her revolutionary battle for human rights and career as a medical doctor. When her husband disappears under the country's Pro-Russian regime, she flees to the countryside with her son to treat people who had never had access to medical care. Samar's powerful stories bring attention to the corruption of religion and politics that she spent her life fighting against both at home and abroad.

• Dr. Sima Samar on fighting for women's rights in Afghanistan

Samar is a Hazara doctor, human rights defender and activist from Afghanistan who is dedicated to the empowerment of women and girls. She founded Shuhada Organization, a civil society collective that runs schools, hospitals and clinics to provide access to healthcare and education. She served as Minister of Women's Affairs, chaired the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and was appointed as a member of the United Nations Secretary General's High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement in 2019.

Sally Armstrong is a Canadian author, journalist, human rights activist and documentary filmmaker who covers war and conflict.

Playing the Long Game by Christine Sinclair with Stephen Brunt

In collaboration with the Canadian sportswriter Stephen Brunt who has followed her career for years, Olympic soccer gold-medallist Christine Sinclair provides an in-depth look into what led her to become the top international goal scorer of all time and one of Canada's greatest athletes. She tells the stories behind some of her brightest successes and heartbreaking failures. In Playing the Long Game, Sinclair shares the wisdom gleaned from a career spent changing the game of women's sport.

• 15 Canadian books to read to get into the Olympic spirit

An Olympic gold medallist, Sinclair was a long-time forward and the captain of Canada's national soccer team. She is playing one final season for the Portland Thorns FC of the National Women's Soccer League. Born and raised in Burnaby, B.C., she now lives in Portland, Oregon.

Stephen Brunt is a Canadian writer and broadcaster with Rogers Sportsnet and the author of multiple books including Facing Ali, Searching for Bobby Orr and Gretzky's Tears.

Landbridge by Y-Dang Troeung

In her memoir Landbridge: Life in Fragments, Y-Dang Troeung wrote about the transactional relationship host countries have with the refugees they admit. Troeung herself was only one-year-old when she came to Canada from Cambodia fleeing Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime. The book also explores the complex ethnic, regional and national identities of family legacies and how they are passed down to the next generation.

Troeung was a researcher, writer and assistant professor of English at the University of British Columbia. Her first book, Refugee Lifeworlds: The Afterlife of the Cold War in Cambodia, explored the enduring impact of war, genocide and displacement. She died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 42 in 2022.

I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together by Maurice Vellekoop

I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together depicts Vellekoop's intense childhood and difficult young adulthood as a gay person in a strict Christian household. Set in Toronto in the 1970s, he begins to see his relationships with his mother and father fracture. As he ventures out on his own, he explores his passion for art. He's set on finding romance and is met with violent attacks and the anxiety surrounding the AIDS era. I'm So Glad We Had This Time Together shows an artist's personal journey to self-love and acceptance.

• Maurice Vellekoop's memoir reflects strained family ties growing up gay and Christian

Vellekoop is a Toronto-born writer and artist. He has been an illustrator for the past three decades, for companies including Air Canada and Bush Irish Whiskey. He is also the author of A Nut at the Opera.

LISTEN | Maurice Vellekoop on The Next Chapter:

The Next Chapter18:56Maurice Vellekoop reflects on family, art, and growing up gay in a religious household

In Maurice Vellekoop’s vividly drawn graphic memoir I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together, we see how faith, family, fraught sexuality and a deep love of art shaped the course of his life.