This topic is a difficult one, and in the hands of a less skill-full novelist it might have come across as heavy-handed. Another key character is similarly scarred, although the full implications of this history do not reveal themselves at first. In the protagonist’s family, her Uncle Mick was abused by a priest, which caused years of suffering. Isolated from the families and heritage, an earlier generation underwent sexual and psychological abuse, which led to a legacy of trauma and drug abuse. Robison shows the multi-generational trauma inflicted by the residential schools, This is a common theme in First Nations literature, such as Thomson Highway’s novel Kiss of the Fur Queen. Throughout the novel, the central theme is the disastrous legacy of colonialism upon the Haisla nation. This process culminates in the book’s climax, when the true cause of Jimmy’s disappearance is revealed. Most of the book is told as a series of flashbacks, which serve to place Jimmy’s death into a larger context. As the book opens we learn that Lisa Marie has recently lost her brother Jimmy, who disappeared while on a fishing trip. The story centers on a main character, Lisa Marie Hill, who is a Haisla woman who lives on the Northwest coast of British Columbia.

One of my favorite ways to explore another world is through literature, so I want to review Eden Robinson’s work, Monkey Beach.

With the “Idle No More” protests sweeping Canada, and the deplorable conditions in Attawapiskat gaining national attention, these issues have now gained global media coverage. People typically think of peoples such as the Kurds when they refer to stateless nations, but less attention is given to indigenous nations. As a result, indigenous peoples are often made invisible in Global and International Studies. In Australia, Canada and the United States the media generally depicts First Nations with reference to a distant past, while little attention is given to questions of colonialism and postcolonialism. Image of Winter Forest courtesy of Evgeni Dinev at Īs I discussed in an earlier post, I am currently working on a project about Algonquian peoples and religion in the Canadian north.

Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson