Rehearsals for Living by Robyn Maynard & Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
CBC Books | | Posted: June 1, 2022 11:55 AM | Last Updated: November 8, 2022
Correspondence between two writers sharing Black and Indigenous perspectives on race, gender and class
When the world entered pandemic lockdown in spring 2020, Robyn Maynard, influential author of Policing Black Lives, and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, renowned artist, musician, and author of Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies, began writing each other letters — a gesture sparked by a desire for kinship and connection in a world shattering under the intersecting crises of pandemic, police killings, and climate catastrophe. These letters soon grew into a powerful exchange about where we go from here.
Rehearsals for Living is a captivating and visionary work — part debate, part dialogue, part lively and detailed familial correspondence between two razor-sharp writers. By articulating to each other Black and Indigenous perspectives on our unprecedented here and now, and reiterating the long-disavowed histories of slavery and colonization that have brought us to this moment, Maynard and Simpson create something new: an urgent demand for a different way forward, and a poetic call to dream up other ways of ordering earthly life. (From Knopf Canada)
Rehearsals for Living is a captivating and visionary work — part debate, part dialogue, part lively and detailed familial correspondence between two razor-sharp writers. By articulating to each other Black and Indigenous perspectives on our unprecedented here and now, and reiterating the long-disavowed histories of slavery and colonization that have brought us to this moment, Maynard and Simpson create something new: an urgent demand for a different way forward, and a poetic call to dream up other ways of ordering earthly life. (From Knopf Canada)
Rehearsals for Living is a finalist for the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction. The winner will be announced on Nov. 16, 2022.
- See all the finalists for the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction
- The CBC Books summer reading list: 45 hot books to read this summer
- Why Robyn Maynard wrote a book exposing the underreported history of racial injustice in Canada
- Leanne Betasamosake Simpson on Indigenous freedom and creating change
- 12 works of nonfiction you need to read this summer
- Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Robyn Maynard envision a future shaped by freedom in Rehearsals for Living
Maynard is a Montreal-based Black feminist writer, activist and educator. Maynard's writing and work focus on documenting racist and gender-based state violence. Her debut book, Policing Black Lives, traced the underreported modern and historical realities of anti-Blackness within a Canadian context.
Betasamosake Simpson is a Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, activist, musician, artist, author and member of Alderville First Nation. Her work often centres on the experiences of Indigenous Canadians. Her books include Islands of Decolonial Love, This Accident of Being Lost, As We Have Always Done and Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies.
Why Robyn Maynard & Leanne Betasamosake Simpson wrote Rehearsals for Living
"I think right now, particularly over the last three years, lots of people have lost the feeling of being hopeful. And I think when you lose that emotion, it's very difficult to organize beyond. But it's also a discipline: you get up and you do the things that you need to do to make life better, to care for the people in your sphere —whether you're feeling happy, whether you're feeling hopeful or not. You do the work anyway.
The more you do that work together, the more it generates those bits of light that are hopeful and full of joy. - Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
"That practice is something that has sustained Indigenous worlds for a very long time. The beautiful thing about that is that the more you do the work, and the more you do that work together, the more it generates those bits of light that are hopeful and full of joy. And I think those can be very, very sustaining."