Unreserved Reads: Interviews with award-winning Indigenous authors

It seems like every week, Indigenous writers are being awarded prizes.

Last week the shortlist for the Indigenous Literature Award was released, which is part of the First Nation Communities READ program. The prize is chosen by Indigenous librarians across Ontario and will be handed out June 27 as part of National Indigenous History Month. 

This week on Unreserved, we revisit conversations with three authors shortlisted for the prize, so you can get your summer reading lists ready. 

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline has won numerous awards already, and was featured on Canada Reads. The book features a dystopian future where non-Indigenous people have lost their ability to dream, and the solution is to eat the bone marrow of Indigenous peoples. 

Lee Maracle's career spans over four decades, and has written seven books of fiction, four non-fiction books and a book of poetry. Her lastest book My Conversations with Canadians is a nonfiction book that addresses the questions Maracle has been asked by readers and audience members throughout her career, on topics such as citizenship, prejudice and reconciliation.

When Toronto Star reporter Tanya Talaga went to Thunder Bay to cover First Nations voting patterns, she came across the story of seven First Nation students who died while attending high school in the city. She later turned their stories into the book, Seven Fallen Feathers. The book has already won the RBC Taylor Prize, the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize and was also shortlisted for the 2017 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction. 

This week's playlist: 

Celeigh Cardinal - There Ain't No Way 

Ansley Simpson - A Mixture of Frailties 

N'we Jinan Artists - Worthy