In Honor of Indigenous Peoples Day, Here Are 7 Must-Reads By Native Authors

BeforeIndigenousPeoples Day was “Indigenous Peoples Day,” it was named for one of the men responsible for helping bring genocide and colonization to the vibrant cultures and communities already here in North America.

Renaming “Columbus Day” has been part of the effort to combat that harm and celebrate the Native communities and cultures that have not just endured but existed here since time immemorial. And the way we speak about historical violence against them is crucial.

Storytelling has always been a key cultural component for Indigenous communities across the continent. Today, it continues to preserve our history, honor our ancestry and influence both the present and the future for us as Indigenous peoples.

Whether you’re in the community and curious, or looking to become better informed about our lineage, creativity and cultures, I highly recommend checking out these meaningful and nuanced books — in honor of Indigenous Peoples Day and our culture that has persevered against all odds.

‘Bad Cree’ by Jessica Johns

This scintillating debut from Jessica Johns will place you in the dreams of our protagonist, a Cree woman who wakes up with a severed crow’s head in her hands. Mackenzie’s journey brings the reader through this horror, magical realist world where she is forced to confront her sister and kokum’s death, and return to her hometown and the family she has left to uncover what has been haunting her dreams.

‘Heart Berries’ by Terese Marie Mailhot

One of the most compelling memoirs you’ll ever pick up, this is one of those stories that sweeps you up in its poetic language and carries you to the final pages in one sitting. Mailhot’s coming-of-age story is one of a woman growing up on the Seabird Island Band in the Pacific Northwest. It was written on the heels of her own trauma, after she was hospitalized for post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder. “Heart Berries” powerfully acknowledges the dark history of colonization on Indigenous peoples and how that manifests in their mental and physical health.

‘Split Tooth’ by Tanya Tagaq

This unique read defies genres as Tanya Tagaq paints a haunting, brooding and tender world filled with love, history, magic, myth and poetry. A seamless blend of memoir and fiction, the story revolves around a girl who grows up in Nunavut, where the land runs through her veins and the tumults of familial love oscillate between alcohol and magic. When the she becomes pregnant, the world grows stranger, and you’ll quickly lose yourself in the plot.

‘The Knowing’ by Tanya Talaga

Since the early 1800s, Indigenous families in Canada have been systematically disrupted through residential schools, the Sixties Scoop, Indian hospitals, and asylums. Tanya Talaga, a journalist for over 20 years, strikes readers with personal, yet deeply researched and moving words in her newest book that explores the dark history of colonialism in Canada. “The Knowing” is a quest of finding out what happened to her great-great-grandmother, Annie Carpenter, and in turn, a quest of understanding the unhealed wounds of Canada.

‘Noopiming: The Cure For White Ladies’ by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

Composed of a combination of poetic and narrative fragments in a fierce reclamation of Anishinaabe aesthetics, Simpson’s novel is a tool of willful resistance to centuries-old colonial myth-making. Her world features seven main characters who struggle in the urban world and eventually seek out nature, only to realize how changed and unnatural it has become. This novel is an embodiment of decolonialist structures, and the characters represent different aspects of Mashkawaji, the narrator frozen in ice. 

‘Monkey Beach’ by Eden Robinson

Eden Robinson’s Lisamarie is haunted by darkness and followed by ravens as she sets off to search for her missing brother, Jimmy, through the Douglas Channel to Monkey Beach — an area famed for Sasquatch sightings. Robinson’s work of literary fiction blends magical realism with darkness and humor, teen culture, and Haisla lore into a multi-layered story traversing the British Columbia landscape.

‘Looking For Smoke’ by K.A. Cobell

This engrossing thriller explores the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls crisis through the main character, Loren, whose sister has gone missing. After she invites the new girl in town, Mara, to attend a Blackfeet giveaway ceremony honoring her grandfather, one of her best friends, Samantha White Tail, ends up dead. The tension builds when it’s revealed that the primary suspects happen to be Loren, Mara and two of their other friends. The four girls have to work together to find out what happened to Samantha, and maybe, just maybe, Loren’s missing sister