Ravensong by Lee Maracle
First published in 1993 and revived in the past decade, Ravensong is an astonishing and groundbreaking novel written by acclaimed Canadian author Lee Maracle. In the story set in 1954, there is a gulf between two worlds - one is the Salish society from which 17-year-old Stacy emerges and the other is the white, urban Vancouver she moves to when seeking formalized education. Raven, a trickster figure, decides these worlds must be reconciled, yet an epidemic wreaks havoc in uneven ways (not so dissimilar from the COVID-19 pandemic's impacts). Ravensong also explores, in subtle and decolonizing interrogations, the gulfs between sexualities in Western contexts and the colonial teachings of homophobia in Indigenous societies, as told in the lives of a lesbian couple who live in the Salish community.
First published in 1993 and revived in the past decade, Ravensong is an astonishing and groundbreaking novel written by acclaimed Canadian author Lee Maracle. In the story set in 1954, there is a gulf between two worlds - one is the Salish society from which 17-year-old Stacy emerges and the other is the white, urban Vancouver she moves to when seeking formalized education. Raven, a trickster figure, decides these worlds must be reconciled, yet an epidemic wreaks havoc in uneven ways (not so dissimilar from the COVID-19 pandemic's impacts). Ravensong also explores, in subtle and decolonizing interrogations, the gulfs between sexualities in Western contexts and the colonial teachings of homophobia in Indigenous societies, as told in the lives of a lesbian couple who live in the Salish community.
First published in 1993 and revived in the past decade, Ravensong is an astonishing and groundbreaking novel written by acclaimed Canadian author Lee Maracle. In the story set in 1954, there is a gulf between two worlds - one is the Salish society from which 17-year-old Stacy emerges and the other is the white, urban Vancouver she moves to when seeking formalized education. Raven, a trickster figure, decides these worlds must be reconciled, yet an epidemic wreaks havoc in uneven ways (not so dissimilar from the COVID-19 pandemic's impacts). Ravensong also explores, in subtle and decolonizing interrogations, the gulfs between sexualities in Western contexts and the colonial teachings of homophobia in Indigenous societies, as told in the lives of a lesbian couple who live in the Salish community.