Alicia Elliott

A powerful look at Canadian history from an Indigenous perspective.

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through NetGalley. Trigger warning for racist violence against Indigenous peoples, including colonialism, kidnapping, forced assimilation, and land theft.)

Though the body of post-apocalyptic Indigenous literature is much smaller than I'd like (Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice and the 2016 scifi anthology Love Beyond Body, Space, and Time are the only two that show more spring immediately to mind), in my own experience, one observation seems to cut across them all: that, for Native Americans and Indigenous peoples, the apocalypse has already happened - is happening - in the form of colonialism. For them, "post-apocalyptic" is not sub-genre of science fiction, or an escape from the banality of everyday life, or even a warning of what could happen, if we continue down our current path. Rather, "post-apocalyptic" describes their current reality, their lives, their struggles, their continued resistance. No matter how many times I encounter it, it's a statement that always bowls me over.

While This Place: 150 Years Retold is not really a science fiction anthology ("kitaskînaw 2350" by Chelsea Vowel notwithstanding), it's hard not to view the comics in this collection from an apocalyptic lens.

The ten comics featured in This Place explore various historical figures and events in Canadian history from an Indigenous perspective: from Sniper Francis "Peggy" Pegahmagabow, who served in WWI, killed 378 enemy soldiers and captured 300 more, and went on to become the most decorated Indigenous soldier in Canadian history...only to be repeatedly denied loans after the war ("Peggy" by David A. Robertson and Natasha Donovan), to a fictionalized account of a mother's stand against CA's kidnapping of Indigenous children, spurred in part by the young boy she failed to save when she was in foster care herself ("Nimkii" by Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, Ryan Howe, Jen Storm, and Donovan Yaciuk).

While both the artwork and storytelling is a little uneven (par for the course in anthologies), for the most part I found this a pretty solid collection of historical graphic stories. The result is fierce, cutting, and sorely needed. I hope this lands in high school syllabuses on both sides of the border.

(tbh, a grounding in Canadian history is a plus, but by no means necessary.)

http://www.easyvegan.info/2019/05/21/this-place-150-years-retold-by-kateri-akiwe... show less

I just finished And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott. I kept thinking I would abandon it because it is such a good look at the mind of a suffering woman that it overwhelmed me. There's a combination of racism, sexism, and, as the author states "sanityism". All you need to do is enter Alice's mind to know you don't want to live there, but even in her paranoia and self-hatred she makes sense. I'll probably read more by Elliott, but it will be with trepidation.

In this teen graphic, Canadian First Nation, Métis and Inuit artists and storytellers depict moments and movements, from the unbearably painful to the boldly triumphant, from the past 150 years from a native perspective. The narratives are intensely personal, and at least one had me tearing up while reading. I selected this title to fulfill the "an anthology featuring diverse voices" category for Read Harder this year, and I'm so glad I did. There is a quote in the book's Foreword that show more especially resonated with me: "Indigenous writers have pointed out that, as indigenous people, we all live in a post-apocalyptic world. The world as we knew it ended the moment colonialism started to creep across these lands." I had to sit with that for a moment, as I had not previously thought about Native history or American history in those terms. show less

The graphic novel, This Place: 150 Years Retold, showcases the voices of eleven Indigenous writers as well as several Indigenous artists. It is a powerful telling of 150 years of Canadian history from the perspective of different First Nations members, Inuit, and Metis, voices rarely heard in our history which is told mostly from the perspective of European settlers.

As in any anthology, the art is somewhat uneven and varies from black and white to full eye-catching colour. Overall, though, show more it is gorgeous and complements the stories which are uniformly well-written and shine a light on important parts of Canadian history since Confederation that few of us have learned, certainly not in school - stories about the horrors of the Residential schools, the kidnapping of their children in the '60s scoop, and the theft of land, culture, and language. Although the stories are (mostly) fictional told in the form of time travel or dystopian tales, there are references to real historical figures like Metis businesswoman Annie Bannatyne (who I had never heard of) and Louie Riel and real historical events like the Red River Rebellion, the Oka crisis, as well as one story about a young Cree boy from the future sent back to witness the effects of climate change.

This Place is a beautiful, heartbreaking, and important book. For those who think graphic novels are for children, yes, this one definitely is and for teens, adults, classrooms, and libraries as well. It gives a side of the story that has too long been hidden but needs to be told and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Thanks to Netgalley and Portage & Main Press for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review show less