by Patty Krawec
First published 2025
When a friend asks Patty Krawec what books might help them understand Indigenous lives, the Anishinaabe writer responds with a reading list. That list grows into a book club, then a podcast, and finally this exploration of marginalized voices. Krawec examines works by writers she calls "Bad Indians" who reject settler narratives and craft their own stories about history, science, gender, and identity. She weaves together her literary analysis with original fiction featuring Deer Woman, a character navigating her own journey of self-definition. Through this dual approach, Krawec challenges the dominant stories that settler colonialism tells and demonstrates how Indigenous and other marginalized writers create alternative worlds. The book includes Krawec's recommendations for filling gaps in readers' understanding, following up on her previous work Becoming Kin by showing how subaltern stories resist erasure and appropriation.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, non-fiction, 21st-century, academic
Vibes: challenging, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, resistance
Setting: Indigenous Lands
Period: 21st Century
231 pages · Hardcover · Broadleaf Books
Content warnings: colonialism