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A Novel
Saul Indian Horse is a child when his family retreats into the woods. Among the lakes and the cedars, they attempt to reconnect with half-forgotten traditions and hide from the authorities who have been kidnapping Ojibway youth. But when winter approaches, Saul loses everything: his brother, his parents, his beloved grandmother—and then his home itself.
Alone in the world and placed in a horrific boarding school, Saul is surrounded by violence and cruelty. At the urging of a priest, he finds a tentative salvation in hockey. Rising at dawn to practice alone, Saul proves determined and undeniably gifted. His intuition and vision are unmatched. His speed is remarkable. Together they open doors for him: away from the school, into an all-Ojibway amateur circuit, and finally within grasp of a professional career. Yet as Saul's victories mount, so do the indignities and the taunts, the racism and the hatred—the harshness of a world that will never welcome him, tied inexorably to the sport he loves.
Spare and compact yet undeniably rich, Indian Horse is at once a heartbreaking account of a dark chapter in our history and a moving coming-of-age story.
"Many indigenous authors have portrayed the horrific conditions endured by Native children in boarding schools in both the US and Canada throughout much of the twentieth century. But perhaps no author has written a novel with such raw, visceral emotion about the lifelong damage resulting from this institutionalization as Wagamese ... Wagamese's heart-wrenching tale was made into an award-winning movie, and it tells a story that will long haunt all readers." ―Booklist (starred review)
"Haunting and masterful ... In spare, poetic language, Wagamese wrestles with trauma and its fallout, and charts the long, lonely walk to survival." ―Publishers Weekly
"[A] chillingly beautiful book ... Wagamese's novel depicts the tragedies of residential schools (although they were more like child labor camps than schools) in the 1960s to '70s through the life of Saul Indian Horse, a young First Nations boy who escapes the horrors of the school through his passion for hockey." ―Electric Literature
This information about Indian Horse was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Richard Wagamese (1955-2017) was one of Canada's foremost writers, and one of the leading indigenous writers in North America. He was the author of several acclaimed memoirs and more than a dozen novels, including Indian Horse, Medicine Walk, and Dream Wheels. Indian Horse was the People's Choice winner of the national Canada Reads competition in 2013, and its film made its world premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. Wagamese began his career in 1979 as a journalist and worked as a newspaper columnist and reporter, radio and television broadcaster and producer, and documentary producer—both individual works and his body of work have been celebrated with numerous awards, including the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature, the Canadian Authors ...
... Full Biography
Link to Richard Wagamese's Website
Name Pronunciation
Richard Wagamese: WAWG-uh-meese
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