Indigenous Literatures BookClub: A Mind Spread Out on the Ground

The Indigenous Literatures Book Club focuses on work by indigenous writers from around the world. Hosted by Tara McGowan-Ross, a Mi’kmaq multidisciplinary artist and writer, the meetings will take place every 4-6 weeks and are open to all.

For our September meeting, we will gather at La Petite Librairie Drawn & Quarterly (176 Bernard O.) at 7 pm to discuss A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by Alicia Elliott.

A MIND SPREAD OUT ON THE GROUND
In an urgent and visceral work that asks essential questions about the treatment of Native people in North America while drawing on intimate details of her own life and experience with intergenerational trauma, Alicia Elliott offers indispensable insight into the ongoing legacy of colonialism. She engages with such wide-ranging topics as race, parenthood, love, mental illness, poverty, sexual assault, gentrifcation, writing and representation, and in the process makes connections both large and small between the past and present, the personal and political—from overcoming a years-long battle with head lice to the way Native writers are treated within the Canadian literary industry; her unplanned teenage pregnancy to the history of dark matter and how it relates to racism in the court system; her childhood diet of Kraft Dinner to how systemic oppression is directly linked to health problems in Native communities.

With deep consideration and searing prose, Elliott provides a candid look at our past, an illuminating portrait of our present and a powerful tool for a better future.

**We offer a 20% discount on A Mind Spread Out on the Ground from now until the meeting date.**