Five Little Indians, Kamloopa win Governor General’s Literary Awards
BC Indigenous authors Michelle Good, Kim Senklip Harvey earn the Canada Council for the Arts’ prestigious prizes
Kim Senklip Harvey (left) and Michelle Good are among the winners of the 2020 GGBooks. Photo of Good by Kent Wong Photography
TWO INDIGENOUS AUTHORS based in B.C. have won the country’s top literary honours for their work. The Canada Council for the Arts today revealed the 2020 winners of the prestigious Governor General’s Literary Awards (GGBooks).
Cree writer Michelle Good of the South Okanagan won in the Fiction category for Five Little Indians (Harper Perennial/HarperCollins Canada). The story follows five friends who are taken from their families when they are young kids and sent to a remote, church-run residential school. Upon being released as teens, without any skills, support, or families, they find their way to the Downtown Eastside, trying over the decades to find a place of belonging and safety in a world that doesn’t want them.
The award comes on the heels of the May 27 announcement of the discovery of the remains of 215 children on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in the community of Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc (Kamloops Indian Band).
Good, who is a member of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, spent 25 years advocating for residential-school survivors while working for Indigenous organizations before obtaining a law degree. She practised law while earning her Master’s of Fine Arts in creative writing at UBC.
In the Drama category, Syilx, Tsilhqot’in, Ktunaxa, and Dakelh Nations Fire Creator (director/ playwright/actor/ community member) Kim Senklip Harvey, who’s based in Vancouver, won for Kamloopa: An Indigenous Matriarch Story (Talonbooks). Kamloopa, which debuted at the Cultch in 2018, is described as an Indigenous artistic ceremony that follows two urban Indigenous sisters and their new friend as they come to understand themselves and their cultures.
Harvey recently completed a two-year residency with the National Theatre School of Canada in its inaugural Artistic Leadership Residency program. Kamloopa won the 2019 Jessie Richardson Award for Significant Artistic Achievement–Outstanding Decolonizing Theatre Practices and Spaces and was the first Indigenous play in the award’s history to win Best Production. The play also won the 2019 Sydney J. Risk Prize for Outstanding Original Play by an Emerging Playwright
Each GGBooks winner receives $25,000, with the publisher receiving $3,000 to promote the winning titles.
For the full list of winners, see GGBooks.
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