Join us for a conversation on contemporary Indigenous literatures with authors Louis-Karl Picard-Sioui and Nathan Adler, and Sarah Henzi, Assistant Professor at SFU. Following their most recent publications, we will talk about the current exchanges, challenges, and barriers that exist for English- and French-speaking Indigenous writers in Canada, and the various ways their own work challenges norms around languages, themes, and genres.
This round table will be moderated by Antje Ziethen (Assistant Professor, FHIS) and Joël Castonguay-Bélanger (Associate Professor, FHIS).
View the interview with Louis-Karl Picard-Sioui about Francophone Indigenous Literature in Quebec.
About the presenters:
Born and raised in Wendake, Quebec, and a member of the Wendat nation, Louis-Karl Picard-Sioui is a writer, poet, performer, historian and anthropologist. For more than 15 years, he has been actively promoting Indigenous arts and cultures. He is the co-founder of the Salon du livre des Premières Nations and director of Kwahiatonk!, the only Canadian Francophone NPO entirely dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of Indigenous literature. In 2017, he published his first collection of short stories, Chroniques de Kitchike : la grande débarque (Éditions Hannenorak), recently translated into English under the title The Chronicles of Kitchike: Taking a Hard Fall (Exile Editions, 2022). His poetry collection Les visages de la terre was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Awards in 2020.
Nathan Adler has an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC, a BFA in Integrated Media from OCAD, and a BA in English Literature and Native Studies from Trent University. He is the author of Wrist and Ghost Lake, an inter-connected collection of short stories (both published by Kegedonce Press), and he is co-editor ofBawaajigan ~ Stories of Power (Exile Editions). He is recipient of an Indigenous Voices Award for prose, a Hnatyshyn Reveal award for literature, and winner of an Aboriginal Writing Challenge for poetry. He is Jewish and Anishinaabe, Two Spirit, and a member of Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation.
Sarah Henzi is a settler scholar and Assistant Professor of Indigenous Literatures in the Department of French and the Department of Indigenous Studies at Simon Fraser University. Her research focuses on Indigenous popular culture, futurisms, and new media, in both English and French. She is also Assistant Editor for Francophone Writing for Canadian Literature, a member of the editorial board of Studies in American Indian Literatures, and Secretary of the Indigenous Literary Studies Association.
