Islands of Decolonial Love
CBC Books | | Posted: March 15, 2017 3:24 PM | Last Updated: January 6, 2020
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's debut short story collection shines a light on Canada's contemporary indigenous community and the struggles they face, especially the Anishinaabeg nation to which Simpson belongs. Islands of Decolonial Love is beautiful, emotional, raw and an important addition to the Canadian library.
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson was chosen by Thomas King for the 2013 RBC Taylor Emerging Writer Award.
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From the book
remember: to feel joy, you first have to escape.
there's an old nishnaabe story, from the beginning of time, where seven grandparents who live in the sky world, take a young child from his parents and raise him in the ways that the earth's people have forgotten. they teach him stories, songs and ceremonies and eventually he is sent back to earth to share these ways with his people. i never really liked that story, because my heart gets broken when they take the boy away from his parents, and i only ever listen to the rest in a nervous holding pattern, lost in how lonely that boy must have felt, lost in a world where he was always the only one.
From Islands of Decolonial Love by Leanne Simpson ©2013. Published by ARP Books.