Assi Manifesto

Publisher's Description (Mawenzi House): 
Translated from French by Howard Scott.

Assi Manifesto is a celebration of the Innu land in the tradition of Joséphine Bacon. This telluric power is reminiscent of Paul Chamberland’s Terre Québec. Natasha Kanapé’s challenge is to name her land, but also to reconcile opposites. 

In this collection of poetry, the author engages with the environment, colonialism, anxiety, anger, healing, solitude, and love. “Assi” in Innu means Land. Assi Manifesto is primarily a land of women. If the manifesto is a public space, Assi is a forum of life, a song for those who open their spirit to its mystery.

Author's Biography (Mawenzi House): 
Born in 1991 in Baie-Comeau, Natasha Kanapé Fontaine is Pessamit Innu. Slam poet, painter, actor, and indigenous rights activist, her first book, N'entre pas dans mon âme avec tes chaussurs (Do Not Enter My Soul in Your Shoes), was published in 2012 in French, and in English by Mawenzi House in 2015. In 2013, the original French version won the poetry prize of the Society of Francophone Writers of America. Her second collection, Manifeste Assi, was published in French in 2014 by Mémoire d'encrier, and in English by Mawenzi House in 2016. Natasha Kanapé Fontaine lives in Montreal.

Resource type: Book (Fiction/Poetry)

Age recommendation: Grades 4-6, 7-9, 10-12, Post secondary

Keywords: World, rules, routines, foundation, nature, forest, tree, ancestors, family, brother, stone, time, honey, mud, love, destiny, children, death, reserve, reservation, rez, tobacco, solstice, birth, dream, manifesto, heavens, nothing, morning, birds, snow, river, pen, skin, smoke, son, song, feeling, emotion, pleasure, resistance, pain, promised land, prairies, hurt, bruise,

Year of publication: 2016

Publisher information: Mawenzi House