> SHELF LIFE <
Wanda Nanibush is curator, Indigenous Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario.
> What’s the best book you’ve read this year and why?
Esther Belin’s Of Cartography (2017) is challenging for the reader but also challenging the form of poetry by bending, breaking, remaking and playing with language and the space of the page. I felt at home in her deeply considered attempt to make poetry speak like it’s Diné. Her work also speaks to the sexiness of living life on your own terms.
> What book can’t you wait to dive into and why?
How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi (2019). Kendi’s book is really accessible and a completely enjoyable read. I get my coffee in the morning, go sit on the porch and read a chapter each day.
> What’s your favourite book of all time?
Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych – it was the thought of looking back on one’s life at the point when your life is ending and facing regret for following the status quo. My heart really broke for Ivan and made me face my own desire to live a life without regrets or capitulations.
> What book completely changed your perspective?
Jean Genet’s Our Lady of the Flowers ( Notre-Dames-desFleurs, 1943). I was drawn to Genet because he was a foster kid like me. His life was immensely difficult but he became a writer. And he produced queer literature that showed how desire could be criminalized.
> If you could have dinner with any author, living or dead, who would it be?
Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I just know he would be smart, witty, flirty and fun.