This is the read this year!
There are stories to remember and there are stories to make. This is a book about those stories, tracking seven generations of strong Anishinaabe women from the White Earth Reservation, the Mississippi band through a set of historical accounts and a fictional and recreated narrative of that history.
This is also the story of how a people survive, heal and dream. This book was written in 1988, scraps and vignettes woven together over the course of several years, and a good pregnancy and birth. Those are some creative times.
The book told stories I had been told and stories we were making- as the final scenes were set well into the 21st century. I found that futuristic novels are so often bleak, but that Anishinaabe people, and our prophecies describe a different future.
That’s also this book.
Excerpt: It is, “hopeful, irreverent, and deeply moving, Winona LaDuke’s, “Last Standing Woman,” chronicles the stories and struggles of an Anishinaabe community across seven generations. In this highly anticipated 25th anniversary edition of the debut novel, Winona LaDuke weaves a nonlinear narrative of struggle and triumph. Resistance and resilience, spanning sever generations from the 1800s to the early 2000s.
Born in the turn of the 21st Century, The Storyteller, also known as Ishkwewegaabawiikwe (Last Standing Woman), carries her peoples’ past within her memories. The White Earth Anishinaabe people have lived here on the same land for over thousand of years. Among the towering white pines and rolling hills, the people of each generation are born, live out their lives, and are buried.
The arrival of European missionaries change the community forever. Government policies begin to rob the people of their land, piece by piece. Missionaries and Indian agents work to outlaw ceremonies the Anishinaabe have practiced for centuries. Grave robbing anthropologists dig up ancestors and whisk them away to museums as artifacts. Logging operations destroy traditional sources of food, pushing the White Earth people to brink of starvation.
Battling addiction, violence, and corruption, etc member of White Earth must find their own path of resistance as they struggle to reclaim stewardship of their land, bring their ancestors home, and stay connected to their culture and too each other.
In this highly anticipated 25th anniversary edition of the debut novel, Winona LaDuke weaves a nonlinear narrative of struggle and triumph. Resistance and resilience, spanning seven generations from the 1800s to the early 2000s.
It is about hope, sorrow and healing. I am very proud to bring this book back for a 25th Anniversary.
I hope to bring out the audio of this book soon. Please join me in celebrating the 25th Anniversary of my novel.
Book Reviews: “Fidelity to White Earth’s history, love for the Ojibwe language, and joy in the strength of women mark this enthralling new edition Winona LaDuke’s Last Standing Woman.”Louise Erdrich, Pulitzer Prize - winning author
Published October 2023 - Authored by Winona LaDuke
