Tainna

Drawing on both lived experience and cultural memory, Norma Dunning brings together six powerful new short stories centred on modern-day Inuk characters inTainna. Ranging from homeless to extravagantly wealthy, from spiritual to jaded, young to elderly, and even from alive to deceased, Dunning's characters are united by shared feelings of alienation, displacement and loneliness resulting from their experiences in southern Canada.

InTainna meaning "the unseen ones" and pronouncedDaenna a fraught reunion between sisters Sila and Amak ends in an uneasy understanding. From the spirit realm, Chevy Bass watches over his imperilled grandson, Kunak. And in the title story, the broken-hearted Bunny wanders onto a golf course on a freezing night, when a flock of geese stand vigil until her body is discovered by a kind stranger.

Norma Dunning's masterful storytelling uses humour and incisive detail to create compelling characters who discover themselves in a hostile land where prejudice, misogyny and inequity are most often found hidden in plain sight. There, they must rely on their wits, artistic talent, senses of humour and spirituality for survival; and there, too, they find solace in shining moments of reconnection with their families and communities. (From Douglas & McIntyre)

Tainnawon the 2021 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction.

Norma Dunning is an Inuk writer who currently lives in Edmonton. She is also the author of the short story collectionAnnie Muktuk and Other Storiesand the poetry collectionEskimo Pie: A Poetics of Inuit Identity.Annie Muktuk and Other Storieswon the 2018 Danuta Gleed Literary Award, which recognizes the best debut short story collection of the year.

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Interviews with Norma Dunning

12:24Norma Dunning on Tainna

Norma Dunning talks to Shelagh Rogers about her book, Tainna: The Unseen Ones, Short Stories.