Great new reads by U of R scholars – Winter 2023 edition!
1
In his memoir kâ-pî-isi-kiskisiyân / The Way I Remember, (University of Regina Press, 2023), Solomon Ratt, now retired from the First Nations University of Canada, reflects on how he survived residential school and found his way back to his language and culture. At six years old, Ratt was torn from his family and placed in the Canadian residential school system. Shifting from personal stories to traditional Cree tales, The Way I Remember is a reflection of his memories and all the forces that shaped his life, and is a celebration of Ratt’s perseverance, and life after residential school.
2
At the age of nine, Rik McWhinney began a life of incarceration. He spent 34 years behind bars, 16 in solitary confinement. Writing helped McWhinney survive, and The Life Sentences of Rik McWhinney (University of Regina, 2022) is a collection of his poems, grievance forms, and letters, along with interviews with the book’s editor and Rik’s long-time friend Dr. Jason Demers, an assistant professor of English at the U of R. The book provides insight into the lives of inmates and into the horrors and violence McWhinney endured within the Canadian penal system.
3
What does it mean to be alive alongside so much pain and suffering in the world? That's a question award-winning poet Dr. Michael Trussler explores in his vivid and surreal collection of poetry, The History Forest,, (University of Regina Press, 2022). Memory, meditation, anxiety, birds, and bird watching are a few of the elements the University of Regina English professor uses to understand the beauty, mystery, and violence around us.
4
In From Left to Right: Saskatchewan’s Political and Economic Transformation (University of Regina Press, 2022), Dale Eisler, Honorary Lifetime Policy Fellow at the U of R’s Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, analyzes the fundamental political and economic shift Saskatchewan has undergone in recent decades. Tracing the province’s trajectory from the birthplace of the CCF-NDP and democratic socialism in North America, to a centre-right Saskatchewan Party stronghold, Eisler explores the global and national events that have shaped the province over the half-century.
