Lee Maracle

The granddaughter of Tsleil-Waututh Chief Dan George, Maracle was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1950[2] and grew up in the neighbouring city of North Vancouver as one of the first Indigenous children to be allowed to attend a normal state (public) school.[3] She dropped out of school and went to California where she did various jobs that included producing films and doing stand-up comedy.[1] She returned to Canada and attended Simon Fraser University.[2] She was one of the first Aboriginal people to be published in the early 1970s.[1]

Maracle is one of the most prolific Indigenous authors in Canada and a recognized authority on issues pertaining to Indigenous people and Indigenous literature.[3] She is an award-winning poet, novelist, performance storyteller, scriptwriter, actor and keeper/mythmaker among the Stó:lō people.

Maracle was one of the founders of the En'owkin International School of Writing[1] in Penticton, British Columbia and the cultural director of the Centre for Indigenous Theatre in Toronto, Ontario.

Maracle has given hundreds of speeches on political, historical, and feminist sociological topics related to Indigenous people, and conducted dozens of workshops on personal and cultural reclamation. She has served as a consultant on First Nations' self-government and has an extensive history in community development. She has been described as "a walking history book" and an international expert on Canadian First Nations culture and history. Her views (as broadcast 18 May 2014 on CBC Radio) are that the Canadian people (not the government, because Canada is an "illegitimate state") should accept responsibility for cultural genocide and the theft of the whole land from the Indigenous people.[3]

Maracle has taught at the University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, Southern Oregon University and has served as professor of Canadian culture at Western Washington University. She currently lives in Toronto, teaching at the University of Toronto First Nations House. She was the writer-in-residence at the University of Guelph.[1]

In 2017, Maracle was presented the Bonham Centre Award from The Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, University of Toronto, for her contributions to the advancement and education of issues around sexual identification.[4]

Her newest poetry book, Hope Matters, was written in conjunction with her daughters Columpa Bobb and Tania Carter, and was published in 2019.[5]

• Berry Brill de Ramirez, Susan (1999). Contemporary American Indian literatures & the oral tradition. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. ISBN 9780816519576.
• Horne, Dee (1999). Contemporary American Indian writing: unsettling literature. New York: Peter Lang. ISBN 9780820442983.
• Leggatt, Judith (December 2000). "Raven's Plague: pollution and disease in Lee Maracle's "Ravensong"". Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal. University of Manitoba. 33 (4): 163–178. JSTOR 44029714.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Lew, Janey (2017). "A politics of meeting: reading intersectional indigenous feminist praxis in Lee Maracle's Sojourners and Sundogs". Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. University of Nebraska Press. 38 (1): 225–259. doi:10.5250/fronjwomestud.38.1.0225. JSTOR 10.5250/fronjwomestud.38.1.0225.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• MacFarlane, Karen E. (2002), "Storying the borderlands: liminal spaces and narrative strategies in Lee Maracle's Ravensong", in Eigenbrod, Renate; Episkenew, Jo-Ann (eds.), Creating community: a roundtable on Canadian aboriginal literature, Penticton, British Columbia / Brandon, Manitoba: Theytus Books Bearpaw Pub., pp. 109–123, ISBN 9781894778084.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

• Columpa Bobb, daughter (actor-playwright-poet)
• Sid Bobb, son (actor)
• Chief Dan George, grandfather (Salish chief-actor)