In this year's Massey Lectures, Tanya Talaga, the bestselling author of Seven Fallen Feathers and the 2017-2018 Atkinson Fellow in Public Policy, addresses the mental healthcare and youth suicide crisis in Indigenous communities in Canada and beyond in this powerful call for justice and healing.
TANYA TALAGA is the acclaimed author of Seven Fallen Feathers, which was the winner of the RBC Taylor Prize; a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Nonfiction Prize, the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, and the BC National Award for Nonfiction; CBC's Nonfiction Book of the Year; a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book; and a national bestseller. Talaga has been a journalist at the Toronto Star for twenty years, covering everything from general city news to education, national healthcare, foreign news, and Indigenous affairs. She has been nominated five times for the Michener Award in public service journalism, and she is the 2017-2018 Atkinson Fellow in Public Policy. Talaga is of Polish and Indigenous descent. Her great-grandmother, Liz Gauthier, was a residential school survivor. Her great-grandfather, Russell Bowen, was an Ojibwe trapper and labourer. Her grandmother is a member of Fort William First Nation. Her mother was raised in Raith and Graham, Ontario. Talaga lives in Toronto with her two teenage children.