Sanaaq: The first novel written in Inuktitut
It took Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk 20 years to write the groundbreaking novel
*** This is the second episode in our four-part series called Another Country: Change and Resilience in Nunavik.***
In the early 1950s, 22-year-old Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk began compiling Inuktitut phrases as a language guide for missionaries. Then she created fictional characters and began imagining their lives, loves and encounters during a period of profound change. Those stories would eventually become Sanaaq — the first novel written in Inuktitut syllabics in Canada.
In the second episode of a special series on change and survival in Nunavik, Nahlah Ayed speaks with Qiallak Nappaaluk, Mitiarjuk's daughter and the mayor of her home community of Kangirsujuaq; Minnie Akparook, an avid reader and retired nurse who was born in Nunavik in 1952 and lived through the period of rapid colonization the novel describes; and Norma Dunning, the first Inuk winner of the Governor General Literary Award for Fiction.
This episode also features excerpts from the University of Manitoba Press/ECW audiobook of Sanaaq, read by Inuk performer Tiffany Ayalik.
*This episode was produced by Pauline Holdsworth, with Nahlah Ayed and Nicola Luksic.
Here are more episodes from Another Country: Change and Resilience in Nunavik:
