Tanya Talaga visits Hamilton to talk about her new book, documentary

In The Knowing, the Anishinaabe author documents her quest to find her great-great grandmother and unravels a tale of the shameful history of Canada’s Indian Residential School system.

Award-winning author, journalist and filmmaker Tanya Talaga will be at the Playhouse Cinema on Thursday, Oct. 10 as part of her nationwide tour to celebrate the release of her new book.

The Knowing is both a book and four-part documentary series, the latter made its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. It’s now available on CBC and CBC Gem.

The Knowing is a highly personal project for Talaga, who is Anishinaabe, documenting her quest to find the truth of what happened to the women in her maternal family. She reveals a story deeply intertwined with Canada's Indian Residential School system.

"While researching and writing The Knowing, the book, I realized we needed to visually document the rapid events unfolding around us – from my mother's maternal family's story to the first anniversary of the finding of Le Estcwicwéy, the missing, two years ago in Kamloops B.C.," said Talaga.

"Makwa Creative, my production company, jumped on the chance, grabbing cameras and running to document this epic story."

Talaga serves as co-director and co-executive producer on the documentary.

The narrative unfolds the impact of centuries-long oppression that continues to reverberate in Indigenous communities today. What began with her mother's appeal for Talaga to use her investigative reporting skills to find out what happened to her great-grandmother Annie

Carpenter, grew into a book that uniquely unravels Canadian history.

Using sweeping imagery of the land, blended with rare archival footage, Ininiw poetic narration and deeply personal conversations with survivors, knowledge holders and newly found family, Talaga takes us on an emotional journey of both familial reclamation and an exploration of Canada’s true history.

Talaga is touring to 20 cities across Canada this fall to share her story.

At the Playhouse, Talaga will be in conversation with Dr. Savage Bear, director of the McMaster Indigenous Research Institute, and a book signing will follow.

“Epic Books is thrilled to be hosting Tanya Talaga at the Playhouse Cinema this fall,” said owner Jaime Krakowski.

“When we opened the Sequel location there five years ago it was our goal to welcome more authors to Hamilton and we’re excited to have Tanya join us. Her work is urgent and necessary for all Canadians; as we continue to work towards reconciliation it’s vital that we understand the true history of this country.”

Talaga is of Anishinaabe and Polish descent and was born and raised in Toronto. She is a

member of Fort William First Nation. Her mother was raised on the traditional territory of Fort William First Nation and Treaty 9.

She is the acclaimed author of the national bestseller Seven Fallen Feathers, which won the RBC Taylor Prize, the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing and the First Nation Communities Read: Young Adult/Adult Award. The book was also CBC’s Nonfiction Book of the Year and a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book.

Talaga was the 2017–2018 Atkinson Fellow in Public Policy and the 2018 CBC Massey Lecturer.

She is also the author of the national bestseller, All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward.

Talaga is the President and CEO of Makwa Creative, a production company focused on Indigenous storytelling. She is also the director and executive producer of Mashkawi-Manidoo Bimaadiziwin Spirit to Soar, a documentary in both English and Anishinabemowin-language versions, available on CBC Gem,and executive producer for Auntie Up! a podcast series from Makwa Creative.

For more than 20 years she was a journalist at The Toronto Star and is now a regular columnist at The Globe and Mail.

Tickets are available here.

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