Eden Robinson

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(19 January 1968–)

Eden Victoria Lena Robinson’s seven books, including a trilogy, have catapulted her into the upper echelons of the literary arts, and especially Indigenous literary arts. She blends Haisla and Heiltsuk history, traditional stories, and contemporary Indigenous and mainstream issues throughout her works. While addressing issues of sovereignty, land, decolonization, essentialism, identity, syncretism, substance abuse, kinship, and dysfunctionality, her universe is both gothic and supernatural because of the main characters’ Haisla or Heiltsuk cultural backgrounds. She has brought Wee’git into the mainstream and expanded not only the characteristics of the trickster, but his power. With her gothic contributions to the literary field, Robinson has also expanded the Native American literary canon and its map to include the northwest coast of British Columbia.

Robinson was born in Kitamaat Village, British Columbia. In a personal interview, Robinson explained that she changed her first name from Vicki to Eden for two important reasons: she was originally named after a cousin who had died choking on a milk bottle while in her crib; and there were five other Vickis in her small community. Her father, Johnny Robinson, was Haisla. Her mother, Winnie Robinson, is Heiltsuk; they met when Johnny stopped in Bella Bella, British Columbia, during a fishing trip. Her younger sister, Carla Robinson, is also an author and a journalist. As children, Eden and Carla spent some time in Bella Bella, but not enough to be familiar with the Heiltsuk culture and stories. Growing up in Kitamaat and graduating from high school there in 1986, Robinson’s greatest influences were paternal relatives and Haisla culture, history, and stories.

In her 2011 book, The Sasquatch at Home: Traditional Protocols and Modern Storytelling, Robinson claims that her Indigenous and cultural skills as a Haisla were rather undeveloped as she grew up on the northern British Columbian coast. She jokes that in regard to her Haisla intelligence quotient, she considers herself unimpressive and even rather dense. In contrast, because of her love of reading, when it came to mainstream Canadian education, she was very intelligent. Robinson writes that there are three main indicators for Haisla intelligence:

an ability to trace your family roots back to mythic times, not having to be told twice, and being able to replicate an action after being shown how to do it. By most Haisla measurements, I am “special.” I can vaguely remember my immediate family and get fuzzy on the stories. Anyone who has taught me or tried to teach me Haisla knows you can tell me twenty or so times, and I might remember a word or phrase. I have a vague idea of how to live a traditional life but would probably starve if I had to catch and cure my own fish and berries.

I enjoyed school because it was the first place where people considered me smart. I was much better at remembering things that were written down and in learning from books.

She attributes her love of reading to both of her parents, and she was encouraged to pursue her education. Robinson thrived in a Western educational environment and had teachers who empowered her educational journey. She often went to the library and read books when bored with classes. She loved the library environment and was a voracious reader; she received a great number of credits for reading books and then recapping their storylines. The librarian also noticed her preferences and soon had a list of suggestions that Robinson thoroughly enjoyed, including Stephen King, with whom she shares a birthday. King would become quite influential in Robinson’s growth as a writer.

Robinson graduated from high school in 1986. Robinson explains in The Sasquatch at Home that she continued her education at the postsecondary level. Attending the University of Victoria, she enrolled in fine arts with a focus on creative writing. Robinson struggled with classes before finding her rhythm in the writing program. During her time at UVic, she entered and won a PRISM International short fiction contest. A subsequent reading of her fiction at the University of British Columbia put her in the presence of faculty members from the university’s Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing. She remembers having a lot of fun with them. From that experience, because she thought it would be good to work with them, Robinson applied to the program and secured her admission to further her craft. Earning the master’s degree was a milestone. Some of her fondest memories about the program include discussions she had outside of the classroom, at restaurants and bars, that delved deeply into the world of writing and all its intricacies. In 2001, she was awarded the University of Victoria’s Distinguished Alumni Award.

Traplines (1996), Robinson’s first publication, is a collection of four short stories that was essentially her graduate thesis, with one story omitted. The collection won the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize and also appeared on the 1998 list of New York Times Notable Books of the Year. Robinson used Traplines as the basis for an application for a Canada Council Explorations Grant. Traplines would prove even more fruitful, since Robinson expanded two of its stories into novels.

Robinson’s writing often tackles complex issues like sexual and lateral violence as well as substance abuse and addiction, and internal, which afflict Indigenous communities because of the longstanding political oppression they have faced. For example, the second story in the collection, “Contact Sports,” is a psycho-thriller that includes macabre scenes of torture. It features Jeremy, a soldier who has been dishonourably discharged from the military and lives with his aunt and his younger cousin, Tom. His aunt occasionally works a graveyard shift at a laundry plant but uses “going to work” as an excuse to party and disappears for days on end. Tom, who is in grade ten, has some physical issues and seizures, but his medical condition does not stop him from doing drugs—smoking pot, snorting cocaine, and ingesting magic mushrooms. The apartment is small, so the cousins share a bedroom. Tom is suspicious of Jeremy at first, especially as Jeremy tries to win him over. This storyline became Blood Sports, Robinson’s 2007 second novel, in which Jeremy utilizes the power of video recordings to make others acquiesce to his will. Blood Sports animates the short story’s scenes of torture while adding another storyline of family and hope.

“Queen of the North,” a novella-length story and the second from Traplines to be expanded into a book, is about a Haisla teenager named Karaoke whose home life is deeply disturbing. Her mother is neglectful and hateful, and she has a predatory uncle whose incestuous abuse and violence propel the story’s plot and climax. “Queen of the North” became the basis for Robinson’s first novel, Monkey Beach, which won the BC and Yukon Book Prizes’ Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, awarded to the best fictional work by a writer in British Columbia. The main character and narrator is Lisamarie Hill, a young Haisla woman in her hometown of Kitamaat. The novel follows the same basic storyline as “Queen of the North,” but with some changes in character roles; the most important is that Jimmy is now Lisamarie’s brother, not her boyfriend. The novel traces Lisamarie’s experiences in late elementary school as a typical Haisla First Nations preteen in northwestern British Columbia, but her experiences with the Haisla culture, especially the spirit world, cause her confusion as she navigates the contemporary world. Brash, bold, and naive, she struggles with becoming an adult—falling into a familiar pattern of not faring well in school, having only a few friends, indulging in the party scene, and having no purpose in life—and often finds her emerging connection with the spirit world to be a burden rather than a gift. The most important scenes occur in a location well-known in local communities for beings called B’gwus, or Sasquatches, from which the beach and the novel get their names.

There are four sections to Monkey Beach: “Love Like the Ocean,” “The Song of Your Breath,” “In Search of the Elusive Sasquatch,” and “The Land of the Dead.” Within each part, a water symbol appears between sections that allows Robinson to transition from past to present or present to past. The protagonist reluctantly yields to Haisla traditions that allow her to participate in the spirit world as well as the earthly world to find out why her brother disappeared. (Robinson would develop human interaction with the spirit world much more in her Trickster trilogy.) In 2020, Robinson adapted this novel into the script for a movie starring Adam Beech and Grace Dove and directed by Loretta Todd.

The Sasquatch at Home is a short publication in which Robinson explores some of the Haisla cultural influences in her writing, including the parameters of traditional story ownership and rights. Traditional storytelling among the Haisla has very important protocols, which Robinson has to navigate in each piece that she writes. In this collection of three different narratives, Robinson offers insight into some of the intricacies of those protocols and how she manages to craft her stories in a way that honours those rules, restrictions, and rights, all of which are encapsulated in the Haisla term nusa. In the first narrative, she explains how the tradition of oolichan fishing began and how it became such a prominent factor, both economically and culturally, for not only the Haisla, but also many of the other Nations along the northwest coast of British Columbia. The oolichan fish is a small species that is very rich in oil, which is the main reason for harvesting it. Robinson employs a lamentation about the oolichan, since their seasonal runs at the beginning of the year are diminishing, and with that, Robinson sees a loss, not just of a fish run, but of her culture as well.

It is Robinson’s candidness about her writing in Sasquatch at Home that provides insight into both her literary influences and her propensity to write. Robinson desired to know the traditions of her people and went with an Elder to try her hand at some traditional food gathering. She discusses her attempt at a very important traditional task with an Elder guiding her, which she failed dramatically. The Elder pondered the situation, and in a summative statement, told Eden, “Perhaps you should stick to writing.” That would be a theme from other people as well, including her father, who liked teasing Robinson about the craft. When she went to Monkey Beach with her father, they were hoping for an encounter with a B’gwus. Robinson was disillusioned about the size of the beach, remembering it as much bigger than it actually is. She explains that her father had a very strong influence on her writing, especially in regard to Sasquatches. When they finally departed without sighting any of the creatures, her father simply quipped, “They must be at home . . . writing.”

After The Sasquatch at Home, there was a considerable gap before Robinson published the first book in her Trickster trilogy, which features a greater interaction with the supernatural world. She won important prizes during that time, including the Writers’ Trust Engel Findley Award in 2016, which encourages mid-career authors to keep writing.

The first of the series, Son of a Trickster, won the 2018 Copper Cylinder Adult Award, a prize for Canadian literature of the fantastic, and was shortlisted for the 2017 Giller Prize. Her second in the series, Trickster Drift, won the 2019 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. In 2021, the final book, Return of the Trickster, was named the best book of the year by CBC Books and the Globe and Mail. In this trilogy, Robinson addresses many issues plaguing First Nations communities, including sexual exploitation, neglect, the decline of cultural practices and ancestral languages, problems with formal education, struggles with colonialism, seeming purposelessness, extreme substance abuse, sexual promiscuity, and family dysfunction.

In the Trickster series, her hometown, Kitamaat, and Vancouver are the main settings. Robinson unveils more Heiltsuk worldviews, blended with a sense of horror influenced by Stephen King and Edgar Allan Poe. Similar to Traplines, Trickster explores the dynamics of a dysfunctional family from the perspective of its youngest member. Jared Martin is a teen living with his divorced mother, and he secretly visits his drug-addicted father and enables his addiction. Jared’s mother ends up in a POSSLQ (persons of opposite sex sharing living quarters) arrangement with a drug dealer named Richie, one of whose pitbulls she has killed with her truck. The other pitbull, much to Richie’s chagrin, becomes Jared’s darling pet after Richie moves in with Jared’s mother. Jared’s life then consists of being a brash, mouthy Haisla; Jared learned to swear at age four. He uses the money he makes from baking pot-laced cookies to help his stepfather, whose own life, Jared finds out later, is also full of substance abuse. Jared’s nature is to be kind and helpful, but his motivations do not result in anything reciprocal; rather, they usually endanger himself or those closest to him.

In the midst of writing the Trickster series, Robinson received some very important accolades for Traplines and Monkey Beach, including the 2017 Writers’ Trust of Canada Fellowship with its fifty-thousand-dollar prize for “demonstrated exceptional creative ability and outstanding promise” (qtd. in van Koeverden). She commented, “The jury’s faith in my career means the world to me and I plan to take this opportunity to write my heart out. Much gratitude and love.” The fellowship included a two-week residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, during which Robinson could focus on her writing.

Part of what Robinson’s novel explores is how the inherent power of nature to ‘transform’ can be both a gift and a curse. In the first book of the trilogy, Son of a Trickster, Robinson reveals Jared as the actual son of a trickster, Wee’git. Wee’git can shapeshift into animal, bird, human, and spirit. Jared’s maternal grandmother reveals her feelings for him as Wee’git’s son on the very first page:

“Wee’git,” she’d say if his parents left them alone. “If you hurt her, I will kill you and bury you where no one can resurrect you. Get, you dirty dog’s arse.”

“I’m Jared,” he’d said.

“Trickster,” she’d said. “You still smell like lightning.”

Robinson crafts a coming-of-age horror novel filled with violence, addictions, dysfunction, and the supernatural. In the end, Jared cannot accept the two worlds he is a part of, yet he has no choice but to be involved in both. During Wee’git’s intervention, in the form of a raven, the trickster communicates with Jared telepathically:

You can heal yourself, you know.

Jared saw himself through the raven’s eyes, and didn’t want to anymore, and then was back in his own head.

“I don’t like that,” Jared said. “Please don’t do that.”

We all start as humans. The moment we realize we aren’t is always awkward.

This novel ends with the contrast between the lifestyle change and a lack of acceptance from his peers, who want the partying Jared, with his marijuana-laced cookie recipe, back.

Robinson had a very important year in 2018. Not only did she publish Trickster Drift, the second book in the trilogy, but she was also awarded an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, UBC, in recognition of her significant literary contributions.

Trickster Drift continues with Jared’s ever-reluctant acknowledgement of his trickster nature and powers, both of which he slowly drifts into beyond retreat. Jared has made it to Vancouver to study at the British Columbia Institute of Technology and reluctantly agrees to live with his Aunt Mave, his mother’s sister. Attending classes starts off quite well, and even when his financial aid arrives, he decides to stay with his aunt in her apartment, which abounds with supernatural activity that he tries to ignore. One of his mother’s ex-boyfriends, Dave, attempts to kidnap and torture Jared, but Jared learns to shapeshift to the safety of his apartment bedroom. Calling on his aunt for help in dealing with the supernatural activity in his bedroom, Jared learns that she is his enemy, and she threatens Jared, demanding that he comply with her demands or watch his loved ones die. Faced with the deaths of his loved ones, Jared remembers his mother’s admonition, “kill or be killed”:

He’d never thought that could be him, that he could be as violent as his mother, but here he was drifting along the ground, examining his handiwork. Obviously, it was self-defence. But it still felt wrong. The coy wolves never actually did anything. Yet. And now that possibility was over. All their possibilities were over.

With the help of supernatural fireflies, Jared suffocates all Georgina’s wolf kin, but the aunt demands Jared bring them back to life. He refuses, so she tortures him by eating him to death, then resurrects him so that she can eat him again. He begins and repeatedly sings “Someday,” a Nickelback song, which irritates Aunt Georgina, his biological father’s sister, so much that she slams him to the ground. This allows him enough time for his escape, since she released him from her grip. He reappears in Kitamaat in his old house, where movers are packing up boxes, but he can’t move, and the book ends there.

In the final book of the trilogy, Return of the Trickster, Jared is recovering from the near-fatal attack that happened in Trickster Drift. The trilogy cycles back to Jared’s origins and to his father, Wee’git, as healer. Through episodes that depict supernatural battles, family dynamics, and ultimately Jared’s will to exist, Return of the Trickster is Robinson’s homage to her father’s influence—it includes more about Sasquatches.

While Jared is in the hospital recovering from his aunt Georgina’s torture, Wee’git communicates with him telepathically. Jared finally accepts his help, and Wee’git explains to Jared how to heal himself by ordering his body parts to comply. Jared finally accepts the reality that he is a trickster. However, he is easily distracted by an attractive Native woman, who turns out to be from the Sea Otter people, who want revenge on Wee’git. Jared, overwhelmed with the supernatural world and the parameters of his powers, agrees to meet with someone who can mentor him in the supernatural. He feels abandoned and needs help, and confesses to Sophia, his stepfather’s mother, how difficult things are. (They had been very close until she found out that Jared was not actually her grandson, and then she ended all communication. Only recently had they rekindled their bond.) She carefully assesses the situation and offers him hope:

Sophia said, “Are you willing to meet a guide to your new world?”

“What kind of guide?”

“Someone who can help you be less lost.”

Not having too many other options, Jared consents. Sophia introduces him to Charles, also known as Wild Man of the Woods Sasquatch, a well-to-do Sasquatch living in a mountain getaway, who teaches Jared trickster survival skills that he will need to battle Jwasins, Wee’git’s sister. Jwasins’ cohorts, the Sea Otter people, kidnap Jared and repeatedly torture him in order to force him to free Jwasins from the world in which he has trapped her. Charles comes to Jared’s rescue at the end of the book, which ends with an epilogue alluding to Robinson’s signature happy ending.

Robinson’s Trickster trilogy has had great impact in Canada and the US. It was made into an acclaimed CBC television series called Trickster, which was also carried on the CW Network in the US. The series departs from the published trilogy, but Robinson enjoyed the enhancements of the characters and the storyline. With some regret, Robinson explained that production ended abruptly following reports that the director’s claims of being First Nations and Métis were fraudulent.

In 2022 and 2023, Robinson spent a few seasons at home in Kitamaat to enjoy a hiatus from writing. She loves her hometown and finds inspiration in the land, the water, the people, and their stories. She is keenly interested in band council politics and in how governance has focused not only on current economic, ecological, and historical issues, but also on how each citizen of her nation is part of decolonization efforts. She has a great concern for cultural revitalization and for how that converges with being a modern First Nations community with a rich history that informs both the present and the future. In an interview with CBC Radio, Robinson explains, “The stories that I grew up with are fluid. They’re living, breathing things that need tending, whereas a novel is its own little encased world. I think of a novel as something in amber, whereas the oral stories are still alive and flying around.”

 

Bibliography

Books

Traplines. Knopf Canada, 1996.

Monkey Beach. Knopf Canada, 2000.

Blood Sports. McClelland and Stewart, 2006.

The Sasquatch at Home: Traditional Protocols & Modern Storytelling. U of Alberta P, 2011.

Son of a Trickster. Knopf Canada, 2017.

Trickster Drift. Knopf Canada, 2018.

Return of the Trickster. Knopf Canada, 2021.

Translations

La reine du Nord. Translated by Suzanne V. Mayoux, Éditions de l’Olivier, 1998.

Vorstin Van Het Noorden. Translated by Dons Reerink, Prometheus, 2000.

Ahvirannik. Translated by Ingrid Järv, Hotger, 2002.

Fallen stellen. Translated by Sabine Hedinger, Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 2002.

Les esprits de l’océan. Translated by Nadine Gassie, Éditions Albin Michel, 2002.

Strand der Geister. Translated by Sabine Hedinger, Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 2002.

Pobřeží Seskvečů. Translated by Eva Dobrovolná, Havran, 2014.

Le fils du Trickster. Translated by Marie Frankland, VLB éditeur, 2023.

La dérive du Trickster. Translated by Marie Frankland, VLB éditeur, 2024.

Produced Scripts

“Episode #1.1,” “Episode #1.2,” “Episode #1.3,” “Episode #1.4,” “Episode #1.5,” and “Episode #1.6.” Trickster, directed by Michelle Latimer, season 1, episodes 1–6, CBC, 2020.

Monkey Beach, directed by Loretta Todd, McIntyre Media, 2020.

Other

Terminal Avenue. 1995. University of British Columbia. MFA Thesis.

Foreword. In My Own Moccasins: A Memoir of Resilience, by Helen Knott, U of Regina P, 2019, pp. xi–xii.

 

Selected Periodical Publications—Uncollected

“Looking for Home: Chapter Two.” Windspeaker, 6–9 June 1994, p. 3.

“Give Us Our Due.” Time Canada, vol. 156, no. 24, Dec. 2000, p. 24.

“Terminal Avenue.” So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Uppinder Mehan, Arsenal Pulp Press, 2004, pp. 207–14.

“Minnows.” The Walrus, Oct. 2010, https://thewalrus.ca/minnows-7-8.

“Voices in Australia’s Aboriginal and Canada’s First Nations Literatures,” by Robinson and Kim Scott. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, vol. 13, no. 2, 2011, pp. 2–7..“Meditating with the Eagles, the Mind Quiet.” Toronto Star, 1 July 2012, https://thestar.com/news/gta/my-favourite-place-meditating-with-the-eagles/article_96a4e9cb-607e-5705-b8d4-21eb8af047f7.html.

“Meditating with the Eagles, the Mind Quiet.” Toronto Star, 1 July 2012, https://thestar.com/news/gta/my-favourite-place-meditating-with-the-eagles/article_96a4e9cb-607e-5705-b8d4-21eb8af047f7.html.

“Northern Lights.” The Fiddlehead, no. 253, fall 2012, pp. 53–66.

“Terminal Avenue.” Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction, edited by Grace L. Dillon, U of Arizona P, 2012, pp. 207–14.

“Nanas I Have Loved.” The Fiddlehead, no. 272, summer 2017, pp. 7–15.

“Trudeau Can No Longer Say He has the West in His Heart.” Globe and Mail, 18 Feb. 2017, https://theglobeandmail.com/opinion/the-pm-no-longer-can-say-he-has-the-west-in-his-heart/article34084312.

“Three Stories.” The Fiddlehead, no. 280, summer, 2019 pp. 8–11.

“What Do You Have to Lose by Taking Hydroxychloroquine? Too Much.” Globe and Mail, 13 Apr. 2020, https://theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-what-do-you-have-to-lose-by-taking-hydroxychloroquine-for-covid-1.

Interviews

Wickens, Barbara. “A Literary Star Is Born.” Maclean’s, vol. 108, no. 47, Nov. 1995, p. 13.

Chou, Stephanie. “Eden Robinson.” Nineteen Questions, 24 Nov. 2014, https://nineteenquestions.com/2014/11/25/eden-robinson.

Hubbard, Taryn. “Eden Robinson: On Writing and the Gothic.” Canadian Gothic, special issue of Room: Making Space in Literature, Art & Feminism since 1975, vol. 39, no. 3, Sept. 2016, https://roommagazine.com/whats-new/interview/eden-robinson-on-writing-and-the-gothic.

Schimkat, Helga. “The Saturday Rumpus Interview with Eden Robinson.” The Rumpus, 24 Sept. 2016, https://therumpus.net/2016/09/26/weekend-rumpus-roundup-158.

Bedell, Anita. “The Door to Personal and Magical Transformation Is Darkness: An Interview with Eden Robinson.” PRISM International: Contemporary Writing from Canada and the World, 2 Mar. 2017, https://prismmagazine.ca/2017/03/02/the-door-to-personal-and-magical-transformation-is-darkness-an-interview-with-eden-robinson.

“Why Canada Reads Author Eden Robinson Wrote a Modern Trickster Tale.” CBC Radio: The Next Chapter, 20 Mar. 2017, https://cbc.ca/radio/thenextchapter/�eden-robinson-victor-dwyer-bev-sellars-1.4027542/why-canada-reads-author-eden-robinson-wrote-a-modern-trickster-tale-1.4027603.

Rose, Rachel. “Laughing through Darkness: An Interview with Eden Robinson.” Cascadia Magazine, 4 May 2018, https://cascadiamagazine.org/artsculture/�laughing-through-darkness-an-interview-with-eden-robinson.

Hank, Melissa. “Trickster Author Eden Robinson Is Laughing All the Way to TV Success.” Canada.com, 9 Oct. 2020, https://o.canada.com/entertainment/�television/�trickster-author-eden-robinson-is-laughing-all-the-way-to-tv-success.

Johnson, Will. “Eden Robinson: Role Model? Good Lord. Who Thinks I’m a Role Model?” The Humber Literary Review, vol. 4, no. 1, 2022, https://humberliteraryreview.com/will-johnson-interview-eden-robinson.

 

Works Cited

Arriagada, Paula. “First Nations, Métis and Inuit Women.” Women in Canada: A Gender-Based Statistical Report, Statistics Canada, 2016, https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/89-503-X201500114313.

Chiefs Assembly on Education. “A Portrait of First Nations and Education.” Chiefs Assembly on Education, 1–3 Oct. 2012, Palais des congrès de Gatineau, Gatineau, QC. Presentation Slides. https://web.archive.org/web/20201119062805/

https://afn.ca/uploads/files/events/fact_sheet-ccoe-3.pdf.

Cram, Stephanie. “Lessons from a Trickster: Eden Robinson on Breaking All the Rules.” Herizons, vol. 33, no. 2, 2019, pp. 22–24.

Devlin, Mike. “Brush with COVID Lends Edge to Eden Robinson’s Trickster” Victoria Times Colonist, 23 Mar. 2021, https://timescolonist.com/entertainment/�brush-with-covid-lends-edge-to-eden-robinsons-trickster-finale-4688217.

Dobson, Kit. “Eden Robinson: Reading for B’gwus.” Ten Canadian Writers in Context, edited by Marie Carrière et al., U of Alberta P, 2016, pp. 141–46.

—. “Indigeneity and Diversity in Eden Robinson’s Work.” Disappearance and Mobility, special issue of Canadian Literature, vol. 201, 2009, pp. 54–67, https://doi.org/10.14288/cl.v0i201.192890.

Horne, Dee. “Trapped Tales: Review of Traplines by Eden Robinson.” Canadian Literature, vol. 156, 1998, pp. 160–62.

Howells, Coral Ann. “Cross-Cultural Encounters, Hybridized Identities Writing in English, Dreaming in Haisla: Eden Robinson, Monkey Beach.” Contemporary Canadian Women’s Fiction: Refiguring Identities, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. 183–97.

Hoy, Helen. How Should I Read These?: Native Women Writers in Canada, U of Toronto P, 2001.

Reed, Sabrina. “‘Just Say No’: Eden Robinson and Gabor Maté on Moral Luck and Addiction.” Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, vol. 47, no. 4, Dec. 2014, p. 151.

Robinson, Eden. Interview. Conducted by Frederick White, 8 Aug. 2022.

Roupakia, Lydia Efthymia. “On Judging with Care and the Responsibility of an Heir: Reading Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach.” University of Toronto Quarterly, vol. 81, no. 2, 2012, pp. 279–96.

Stoffman, Judy. “Talented Writer Tackles a Novel: Book Touches on Topics Ranging from Omens to Elvis.” Toronto Star, 10 Feb. 2000, p. E1, ProQuest, https://proquest.com/newspapers/talented-writer-tackles-novel-book-touches-on/docview/438080066/se-2?accountid=14656.

Sugars, Cynthia. “Strategic Abjection: Windigo Psychosis and the ‘Postindian’ Subject in Eden Robinson’s ‘Dogs in Winter.’” Canadian Literature, no. 181, 2004, pp. 78–91, https://doi.org/10.14288/cl.v0i181.193051.

van Koeverden, Jane. “Eden Robinson Awarded $50K Writers’ Trust of Canada Fellowship.” CBC Books, 7 Nov. 2017, https://cbc.ca/books/eden-robinson-awarded-50k-writers-trust-of-canada-fellowship-1.4391104.

“Why Canada Reads Author Eden Robinson Wrote a Modern Trickster Tale.” CBC Radio: The Next Chapter, 20 Mar. 2017, https://cbc.ca/radio/thenextchapter/�eden-robinson-victor-dwyer-bev-sellars-1.4027542/why-canada-reads-author-eden-robinson-wrote-a-modern-trickster-tale-1.4027603.

Zimmermann, Jutta. “Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach (2000) as Multi-Narrative: The Dialogic Relation of Indigenous and Western World Views.” What Literature Knows: Forays into Literary Knowledge Production, edited by Antje Kley and Kie Merten, Peter Lang Publishing, 2018, pp. 275–96.

 

Frederick White teaches linguistics, composition, and literature in the English Department at Slippery Rock University (Pennsylvania). His research explores and examines Indigenous sovereignty, cultures, history, education, identity, literature, language revitalization, and oral literature, with a focus on his Haida culture. His creative writing includes poetry, drama, and fiction, including an award from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas for prose.