After fifteen years of exile, Yammie, a young Innu woman, returns to her home in the Uashat nation on Quebec's North Shore. She has come back to teach language and drama at the community's school, but finds a community stalked by despair. Yammie will do anything to rescue her students. When she accepts a position directing the end-of-year play, she sees an opportunity for the youth to take charge of themselves.

In writing both spare and polyphonic, Naomi Fontaine honestly portrays a year of Yammie's teaching and of the lives of her students, dislocated, abandoned, and ultimately, possibly, triumphant. (From House of Anansi Press)

Naomi Fontaine is a member of the Innu Nation of Uashat. Her debut novel, Kuessipan, was made into a film that was featured at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. The French-language edition of Manikanetish was a finalist for a Governor General's Literary Award and Radio Canada's Combat des livres 2019.