FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Toronto – Friday, April 27

Toronto Star investigative journalist Tanya Talaga to deliver 2018 CBC Massey Lectures

Toronto Star investigative journalist and bestselling author Tanya Talaga will deliver the 2018 CBC Massey Lectures. Her lectures, entitled All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward, are based on her reporting as the 2017-2018 Atkinson Fellow in Public Policy, exploring issues of Indigenous youth suicide in communities in Canada and beyond.

Across her five lectures Talaga will explore the legacy of cultural genocide against Indigenous peoples, how that legacy has led to a forced disconnection to land and language, and the need for Indigenous self-determination in the social, cultural and political arenas. Many Indigenous communities, both in Canada and abroad, find that the road back to a relationship with land and language is key to suicide prevention strategies and to community healing — to what in fact it means to be Indigenous. These lectures are about values for our times, and for all of us.

The lectures will be recorded live across Canada throughout September and October 2018 and broadcast nationally on CBC Radio IDEAS in November 2018. The book version of the lectures All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward, will be published by House of Anansi Press on September 18, 2018.

The 2018 CBC Massey Lectures is a collaboration between CBC, House of Anansi Press, Massey College in the University of Toronto, the Toronto Star, and the Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy. This fellowship is made possible by the Atkinson Foundation, the Honderich Family and the Toronto Star.

About Tanya Talaga: Tanya Talaga is the 2017–2018 Atkinson Fellow in Public Policy and the acclaimed author of Seven Fallen Feathers, which was the winner of the RBC Taylor Prize; a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Nonfiction Prize, the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, and the BC National Award for Nonfiction; CBC’s Nonfiction Book of the Year; a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book; and a national bestseller. Talaga has been a journalist at the Toronto Star for twenty years, covering everything from general city news to education, national healthcare, foreign news, and Indigenous affairs. She has been nominated five times for the Michener Award in public service journalism. Talaga is of Polish and Indigenous descent. Her great-grandmother, Liz Gauthier, was a residential school survivor. Her great-grandfather, Russell Bowen, was an Ojibwe trapper and labourer. Her grandmother is a member of Fort William First Nation. Her mother was raised in Raith and Graham, Ontario. Talaga lives in Toronto with her two teenage children.

The CBC Massey Lectures is a partnership between CBC, House of Anansi Press and Massey College in the University of Toronto. Named in honour of Vincent Massey, former governor general of Canada, since their creation in 1961 by the CBC, the Massey Lectures have established their place as a Canadian institution and become an annual highlight of our cultural life. The lectures provide a forum on radio where contemporary Canadian thinkers can explore crucial issues of our time. Former lecturers include Martin Luther King Jr., Margaret Atwood and Stephen Lewis.

About House of Anansi Press:

House of Anansi Press was founded in 1967 by writers Dennis Lee and David Godfrey. Anansi started as a small press with a mandate to publish Canadian writers, and quickly gained attention for publishing authors such as Margaret Atwood, Matt Cohen, Michael Ondaatje as well as George Grant and Northrop Frye. French-Canadian works in translation have always been an important part of the list, and prominent Anansi authors in translation include Roch Carrier, Marie-Claire Blais, Anne Hébert, and France Daigle. Today, the company specializes in finding and developing Canadian writers of literary fiction, poetry, drama, and nonfiction, including Katherena Vermette, Lisa Moore, Patrick DeWitt, Lynn Coady, Kathleen Winter, and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, and in maintaining the culturally significant backlist that has accumulated in the decades since the house was founded.

About the Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy:

The Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy provides a seasoned Canadian journalist with the financial means to pursue a year-long investigation into a critical public policy issue. This award was established by the Atkinson Foundation, the Honderich Family, and the Toronto Star in 1988. As a public policy advocate, grantmaker and investor, the Atkinson Foundation has promoted social and economic justice in Ontario since 1942.

About Massey College: Massey College is a graduate students’ residential community affiliated with, but independent from, the University of Toronto. The College offers much more than a residence; it provides a unique, congenial and intellectual environment for graduate students of distinguished ability in all disciplines to share in a rich and stimulating community. The College is a partner with the CBC and House of Anansi Press in the annual Massey Lectures, and also coordinates the annual Walter Gordon Symposium. Massey College is home to the Canadian Journalism Fellowships and, together with the School of Graduate Studies, supports the Scholar-at-Risk program.