black_girl_reading 's review for:

Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese

5.0

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Richard Wagamese, my heart. This book. Indian Horse. About Saul Indian Horse, a young Ojibwe boy whose own familial experiences of the residential schools precede him, who, in a time of unimaginable loss, has his entire life turned upside down when he is forced to attend the same school, and who later, finds both joy and suffering in the racist world he lives in and the sport he excels in, and in his own painful path towards his history and his truth. This book. If you only ever read one book again make it this book. Wagamese is, I’ve decided, the most important writer of our generation, and this is his most important story. He is a master storyteller and this book is his masterpiece (so is medicine walk. How did he even hold two books so beautiful inside of himself?). This novel tells a story about the residential schools as real as anything. You will feel despair. You will see into the heart of the colonial machine and you will understand that it, at it’s core, crushes children so it can have the land and the resources and the power. You will also see life. Beautiful resilient life. And community, and ancestors, and joy, and truth. This book is from one place and from the entire Indigenous and racialized world. It is small and enormous. And if you’re worried that this book talks about hockey and you don’t like the sport (me!), you’ll see Wagamese’s writing at it’s best, because you’ll be astoundingly, impossibly touched by that too. This is the book. Tell your family. Tell your friends. Share this post. I want the world to read this book.