ENG 222 & 322: Canadian Literature: A Guide to Indigenous Canadian Literature

When Gabriel Quinn abandons his laboratory and returns to Smoke River Reserve, where his mother and sister lived, he finds that almost everyone in the community has disappeared. Even the sea turtles are gone, poisoned by an environmental disaster known as The Ruin. The fact is, Gabriel was the chief architect of the disaster and he has come to Smoke River to drown himself in the sea. But as he prepares to let the water take him, he sees a young girl in the waves. Plunging in, he saves her and is soon saving others. Who are these people, with their long black hair and almond eyes, who seem to have fallen from the sky?

The Inconvenient Indian is at once a "history" and the complete subversion of a history--in short, a critical and personal meditation that the remarkable Thomas King has conducted over the past 50 years about what it means to be "Indian" in North America. Rich with dark and light, pain and magic, this book distills the insights gleaned from that meditation, weaving the curiously circular tale of the relationship between non-Natives and Natives in the centuries since the two first encountered each other.

A flock of Indians has just flown smack into the side of a Bay Street skyscraper. Again. It's up to Bill and Rudy to tag the live ones, nurse them to health at the shelter and release them back into the wild. Thomas King is back in fabulous, fantastical form in this latest collection of short stories, some new, some previously published.

Beginning with a traditional Native oral story, King weaves his way through literature and history, religion and politics, popular culture and social protest, gracefully elucidating North America's relationship with its Native peoples. Native culture has deep ties to storytelling, and yet no other North American culture has been the subject of more erroneous stories. The Indian of fact, as King says, bears little resemblance to the literary Indian, the dying Indian, the construct so powerfully and often destructively projected by White North America.

Truth & Bright Water is the tale of two young cousins and one long summer. Tecumseh and Lum live in Truth, a small American town, and Bright Water, the reserve across the border and over the river. Monroe Swimmer, famous Indian artist, returns to live in the old church with the hope of painting it into the prairie landscape and re-establishing the buffalo population. Tecumseh's Aunt Cassie has come back too, already arguing with his mother. Tecumseh has more questions than anyone will answer, until the Indian Days festival arrives and the mysteries of the summer collide in love, betrayal and reconciliation.

Welcome to the town of Blossom—part myth, part hilariously off-kilter reality.Green Grass, Running Water is the story of five Blackfoot Indians whose existences connect in ways that are at once coincidental, comical and cosmic. This is a rich tale, weaving magical humour, revisionist history, nostalgia and myth into one bright whole. Green Grass, Running Water’s timeless appeal has kept it flying off bookstore shelves since it was published in 1993. Enhanced with a P.S. section, this edition introduces a new generation of readers to King’s unique take on contemporary human experience.

Contents Include: An Okanagen Indian becomes a captive circus showpiece in England / Harry Robinson -- Coal oil, crayons and schoolbooks / Ruby Slipperjack -- Run / Barry Milliken -- Weaver Spider's web / Peter Blue Cloud (Aroniawenrate) -- Compatriots / Emma Lee Warrior -- The seventh wave / Jordan Wheeler -- The rez sisters : an excerpt from act I / Tomson Highway -- An afternoon in bright sunlight / S. Bruised Head -- The one about Coyote going west / Thomas King -- Turtle gal / Beth Brant -- Hookto : the evil entity / Bruce King -- This is a story / Jeanette C. Armstrong -- Rain / Maurice Kenny

When Will returns to Medicine River, he thinks he is simply attending his mother's funeral. He doesn't count on Harlen Bigbear and his unique brand of community planning. Harlen tries to sell Will on the idea of returning to Medicine River to open shop as the town's only Native photographer. Somehow, that's exactly what happens. Through Will's gentle and humorous narrative, we come to know Medicine River, a small Albertan town bordering a Blackfoot reserve.

Building on interdisciplinary theoretical approaches to the production of space, "AlterNative Spaces" highlights the ways in which the authors under consideration - Leslie Marmon Silko, Tomson Highway, Gerald Vizenor and Thomas King - construct overlapping, ambivalent, and sometimes contradictory literary spaces by drawing on a variety of cultural codes. Contemporary Native literatures are thus read as part of a complex cultural web in which the meanings of culture and 'Native' are constantly negotiated through the construction of spaces.

First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Thomas King: Works and Impact provides an up-to-date, comprehensive overview of all major aspects of King's oeuvre as well as its reception and influence. It brings together expert scholars to discuss King's role in and impact on Native literature and to offer in-depth analyses of his multifaceted body of work. The volume will be of interest to students and scholars of literature, English, and Native American studies, and to King aficionados.