Join Tommy Orange and Waubgeshig Rice as they discuss contemporary Indigenous storytelling.
Welcome to One Page: Canada's Virtual Literary Series! Stay tuned for content throughout the fall, featuring international writers talking directly to Canadian audiences.
Today, Tommy Orange talks with Anishnaabe journalist and author Waubgeshig Rice (Moon of the Crusted Snow).
In a sweeping yet nuanced exploration of identity and the role of Native Americans in a contemporary urban America (in this case, Oakland, California), Cheyenne and Arapaho author, Tommy Orange’s novel There There presents a complex portrait of urban life and the impact that racism, ignorance and historical wrongs has had on an interconnected group of Native American characters.
Inspired by a Gertrude Stein line about Oakland and all the ways it changed upon her return (“there is no there there”), Orange plays with this paradox of cities being both permanent and ever-changing places of nostalgia, desperation and success.
https://onepagelit.ca/events/tommy-orange-there-there/
