The Knowing by Tanya Talaga

A charting of Canadian history through a personal lens.

A charting of Canadian history through a personal lens

CBC Books Posted: Apr 30, 2024 9:46 AM EDT | Last Updated: September 5

A book cover of a soldiers and nuns pillaging an Indigenous community.

For generations, Indigenous People have known that their family members disappeared, many of them after being sent to residential schools,"Indian hospitals" and asylums through a coordinated system designed to destroy who the First Nations, Mtis and Inuit people are. This is one of Canada's greatest open secrets, an unhealed wound that until recently lay hidden by shame and abandonment.

The Knowingis the unfolding of Canadian history unlike anything we have ever read before. Award-winning and bestselling Anishinaabe author Tanya Talaga retells the history of this country as only she canthrough an Indigenous lens, beginning with the life of her great-great grandmother Annie Carpenter and her family as they experienced decades of government- and Church-sanctioned enfranchisement and genocide.

Deeply personal and meticulously researched,The Knowingis a seminal unravelling of the centuries-long oppression of Indigenous People that continues to reverberate in these communities today.(From HarperCollins)

Tanya Talagais a writer and journalist of Anishinaabe and Polish descent. She is a member of Fort William First Nation. Her bookSeven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death and Hard Truths in a Northern Citywon the RBC Taylor Prize, the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing and the First Nation Communities Read: Young Adult/Adult Award.All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward was the basis for the2018 CBC Massey Lectures.

Books by Tanya Talaga

Interviews with Tanya Talaga

Ideas53:59Massey at 60: Tanya Talaga on what Canada can learn from the stories of Indigenous peoples

2018 Massey Lecturer Tanya Talaga reflects on the legacy of cultural genocide, and on how the stories of Indigenous peoples offer lessons for Canada today. *This episode is part of a series of conversations with and about former Massey Lecturers to mark the 60th anniversary of Massey College, a partner in the CBC Massey Lectures.

The Sunday Magazine28:34Complicated questions surrounding Indigenous identity in Canada

Following an investigation by CBC's The Fifth Estate that found that genealogical records and historical research contradict celebrated singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie's claim that she is a Cree woman from Saskatchewan, Piya Chattopadhyay speaks with three public thinkers on Indigenous life Niigaan Sinclair, Tanya Talaga and Drew Hayden Taylor about the fallout and broader implications for Indigenous communities.

'This is where I am from:' Tanya Talaga explains why land connects her to all the women in her family.

6 years ago

2:24

'This is where I am from:' Tanya Talaga explains why land connects her to all the women in her family.

Why Tanya Talaga wanted to begin the 2018 CBC Massey Lectures in Thunder Bay

6 years ago

3:05

Why Tanya Talaga wanted to begin the 2018 CBC Massey Lectures in Thunder Bay

'This is not ancient history, this is something that we are still living with now' | Tanya Talaga

3 years ago

6:34

Author and columnist Tanya Talaga joins Power & Politics to discuss the path forward after a First Nation says it found the remains of 215 Indigenous children at the site of a former residential school

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