Native authors and issues reap awards

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Aboriginal writers and books touching on Aboriginal issues dominated this year's Saskatchewan Book Awards.

Almost 500 Saskatchewan bibliophiles gathered in Regina on Nov. 24 to discover who the winners would be. Saskatchewan Book Awards, Inc., a non-profit, charitable organization made up of volunteer book lovers, handed out awards in 12 categories at a gala dinner.

For the first time ever, the most prestigious award-or book of the year-ended in a tie.

The two-member panel of jurors (authors Rudy Weibe and Kristjana Gunnars) found they couldn't decide between Patricia Monture-Angus' Journeying Forward: Dreaming First Nations Independence and Trevor Herriot's River in a Dry Land.

Monture-Angus was still excited by the honor when she was contacted at her University of Saskatchewan faculty of Native Studies office on Nov. 30.

"It was a tie, but that's cool," she said. "I don't mind that at all, because he was short-listed for a [Governor General's Award]."

The list of winners shows there was a decided First Nations flavor to this year's awards ceremony. Monture-Angus said that was a plus for her.

"It was certainly, absolutely, a First Nations presence at the awards, so I felt very comfortable sitting there in the crowd and I don't usually feel comfortable at those kind of events," the Mohawk author said. "I was quite nervous about going for that reason, but it was a really enjoyable evening. I was very, very calm until they said my name. Then I started shaking," said Monture-Angus.

"This was the first award that I've ever won for writing," she said. "That's part of the thrill about it because what I really wanted to be when I was a little girl was a writer. So when I published my first book it was kind of like, 'goodness, maybe I am a writer.' I've always wondered about the academic thing. I mean, I'm writing academic books; does that mean I'm really a writer? But when you get book of the year, it's kind of hard to dispute with yourself anymore that you're not really a writer."

Known nationally as a tough-talking authority on Native issues, the accomplished former law professor admitted- surprisingly-that she still doubts her own abilities.

"Even still, even after three university degrees and, I guess, a number of successes- I don't want to sound like I'm arrogant but, you know, I get a lot of strokes in my life. I get a lot of slaps, too, for that matter- underneath it all there's still that . . . lack of confidence that comes from growing up in an environment that told you you were no good 'cause you're an Indian," she said.

"So winning the book award had kind of a bitter-sweet quality, because I was still really thrilled but at the same time there was that little voice inside saying, 'Are you sure you deserve this? Are you good enough for this?' It's still there. It's not gone. And I think it's really important to talk about it because if it's impacting on me and my life that way . . . you know, I'm a tenured, full professor here at a Canadian university. Imagine what it does to my students. Or go back another layer. Imagine what it does to people who are contemplating the idea of being a student. It just, to me, exposes the consequences of that oppression and that colonialism and that racism."

But she admitted that her success could inspire others to follow.

"If winning an award like that has any substantive meaning, that would be the one," she said.

Even the book of the year co-winner's work, a portrait of the land and people of the Qu'Appelle Valley by non-Native Trevor Herriot, had an Aboriginal component to it, said Joyce Wells, executive director of Saskatchewan Book Awards, Inc.

"He said one of the themes of the books was healing the rift between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in the region," Wells told Sage. "It was remarked by everyone that the Aboriginal theme was noticeable this year."

University of Saskatchewan Native Law Centre research director James sakej Henderson and his co-authors Marjori L. Benson and Isobel M. Findlay earned the award in the scholarly writing category with their legal textbook, Aboriginal Tenure in the Constitution of Canada. Henderson took home his second award of the night, along with co-author Marie Battiste, for Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage, a look at why United Nations covenants have not been able to protect Indigenous rights in Canada.

Federal treaty negotiator Tom Molloy's The World is Our Witness, an account of the process that produced the Nisga'a Final Agreement, won the non-fiction category.