Taking Back Our Spirits

“This is a powerful and important book. It undertakes a range and depth of analysis that no other investigation of the context, aims, and effects of Indigenous writing in Canada has yet attempted. It engages with the most painful, vexing, and hopeful matters in terms that are compassionate and unequivocal. We need this book.”

– Jeanne Perreault, University of Calgary, author of Writing Selves: Contemporary Feminist Autography

“Episkenew introduces the hope of First Nations authors to use narrative, novels, autobiography, and community theatre as a healing anodyne for themselves and their own people. She explains how Indigenous life-writing helps Indigenous readers to heal from the trauma of colonization by recrafting their personal and collective myths.”

– Madelaine Jacobs, Canadian Literature, Summer 2010

“Providing an effective analysis of the relationship between political policy, Native peoples, and literature, this will be a useful resource for those interested not only in First Nations literature but also in trauma studies and (post) colonial/settler colony studies.”

– C.L. Sheffield, University of Tennessee, Choice Magazine, October, 2009

“Taking Back Our Spirits functions as a useful, readable, and well-timed reference for students of Canadian history and of Indigenous literatures.”

– Keavy Martin, University of Alberta, Great Plains Quarterly, Winter 2011.