2021 memoir by Eli Baxter
Aki-wayn-zih: A Person as Worthy as the Earth is a memoir written by Canadian writer Eli Baxter . Published by McGill-Queen's University Press , the book won the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for English-language non-fiction.
Told from an Anishinaabay point of view, Aki-wayn-zih is the story of growing up on Turtle Island , life before European contact, and early memories of trapping and fishing on traditional lands. In his book, Baxter also describes how the residential school system changed him as a person, and transformed his family, his reserve community, and others like it.
The book is divided into three parts: the first, "Anishinaabay Kih-kayn-daa-soh-win (Anishinaabay Knowledge)"; the second, "Ish-poh too-kin-nih-goh-yung (Before Contact)"; and the third, "Residential School."
Aki-wayn-zih won the Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction at the 2022 Governor General's Awards .[ 1]
Aki-wayn-zih was generally well received. In her review for Montreal Review of Books , Linda M. Morra writes, "These stories are elegant and simple, and therefore accessible, sometimes repeating elements that suggest both their roots in oral narration and their importance as a resource in the building and restoring of Anishinaabay Knowledges."[ 2] At the 49th Shelf , David Paul Achneepineskum of the Matawa First Nations contributed, "Aki-wayn-zih will educate not only Canadians but the world as to what my people went through during this tragic part of history."[ 3] The Governor General's Literary Award peer assessment committee members Will Aitken , Madhur Anand , and Jenna Butler stated, "At a time when [Baxter] worries that the fires of Indigenous languages are going out, his simple and beautiful book, written across languages, cultures, and generations, radiates a radical kind of hope.”[ 4]
1930s 1940s
J. F. C. Wright , Slava Bohu (1940)
Emily Carr , Klee Wyck (1941)
Bruce Hutchison , The Unknown Country (1942)
Edgar McInnis , The Unguarded Frontier (1942)
E. K. Brown , On Canadian Poetry (1943)
John Robins , The Incomplete Anglers (1943)
Dorothy Duncan , Partner in Three Worlds (1944)
Edgar McInnis , The War: Fourth Year (1944)
Ross Munro , Gauntlet to Overlord (1945)
Evelyn M. Richardson , We Keep a Light (1945)
Frederick Phillip Grove , In Search of Myself (1946)
Arthur R. M. Lower , Colony to Nation (1946)
William Sclater , Haida (1947)
Robert MacGregor Dawson , The Government of Canada (1947)
Thomas Head Raddall , Halifax, Warden of the North (1948)
C. P. Stacey , The Canadian Army, 1939-1945 (1948)
Hugh MacLennan , Cross-country (1949)
Robert MacGregor Dawson , Democratic Government in Canada (1949)
1950s
Marjorie Wilkins Campbell , The Saskatchewan (1950)
W. L. Morton , The Progressive Party in Canada (1950)
Frank MacKinnon, The Progressive Party in Canada (1951)
Josephine Phelan , The Ardent Exile (1951)
Donald G. Creighton , John A. Macdonald, The Young Politician (1952)
Bruce Hutchison , The Incredible Canadian (1952)
J. M. S. Careless , Canada, A Story of Challenge (1953)
N. J. Berrill , Sex and the Nature of Things (1953)
Hugh MacLennan , Thirty and Three (1954)
Arthur R. M. Lower , This Most Famous Stream (1954)
N. J. Berrill , Man's Emerging Mind (1955)
Donald G. Creighton , John A. Macdonald, The Old Chieftain (1955)
Pierre Berton , The Mysterious North (1956)
Joseph Lister Rutledge, Century of Conflict (1956)
Thomas H. Raddall , The Path of Destiny (1957)
Bruce Hutchison , Canada: Tomorrow's Giant (1957)
Pierre Berton , Klondike (1958)
Joyce Hemlow , The History of Fanny Burney (1958)
[No award] (1959)
1960s 1970s
[No award] (1970)
Pierre Berton , The Last Spike (1971)
[No award] (1972)
Michael Bell, Painters in a New Land (1973)
Charles Ritchie , The Siren Years (1974)
Marion MacRae and Anthony Adamson , Hallowed Walls (1975)
Carl Berger, The Writing of Canadian History (1976)
F. R. Scott , Essays on the Constitution (1977)
Roger Caron , Go-Boy! Memories of a Life Behind Bars (1978)
Maria Tippett , Emily Carr (1979)
Robert Bothwell and William Kilbourn , C.D. Howe (1979)
Larry Pratt and John Richards , Prairie Capitalism (1979)
1980s
Jeffrey Simpson , Discipline of Power: The Conservative Interlude and the Liberal Restoration (1980)
George Calef , Caribou and the Barren-Land (1981)
Christopher Moore , Louisbourg Portraits: Life in an Eighteenth- Century Garrison Town (1982)
Jeffery Williams , Byng of Vimy: General and Governor General (1983)
Sandra Gwyn , The Private Capital: Ambition and Love in the Age of Macdonald and Laurier (1984)
Ramsay Cook , The Regenerators: Social Criticism in Late Victorian English Canada (1985)
Northrop Frye , Northrop Frye on Shakespeare (1986)
Michael Ignatieff , The Russian Album (1987)
Anne Collins , In the Sleep Room (1988)
Robert Calder , Willie: The Life of W. Somerset Maugham (1989)
1990s
Stephen Clarkson and Christina McCall , Trudeau and Our Times (1990)
Robert Hunter and Robert Calihoo, Occupied Canada: A Young White Man Discovers His Unsuspected Past (1991)
Maggie Siggins , Revenge of the Land: A Century of Greed, Tragedy and Murder on a Saskatchewan Farm (1992)
Karen Connelly , Touch the Dragon (1993)
John Livingston , Rogue Primate: An Exploration of Human Domestication (1994)
Rosemary Sullivan , Shadow Maker: The Life of Gwendolyn MacEwen (1995)
John Ralston Saul , The Unconscious Civilization (1996)
Rachel Manley , Drumblair: Memories of a Jamaican Childhood (1997)
David Adams Richards , Lines on the Water: A Fisherman's Life on the Miramichi (1998)
Marq de Villiers , Water (1999)
2000s
Nega Mezlekia , Notes from the Hyena's Belly (2000)
Thomas Homer-Dixon , The Ingenuity Gap (2001)
Andrew Nikiforuk , Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig's War Against Big Oil (2002)
Margaret MacMillan , Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World (2003)
Roméo Dallaire , Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda (2004)
John Vaillant , The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed (2005)
Ross King , The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism (2006)
Karolyn Smardz Frost , I've Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad (2007)
Christie Blatchford , Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army (2008)
M. G. Vassanji , A Place Within: Rediscovering India (2009)
2010s
Allan Casey , Lakeland: Journeys into the Soul of Canada (2010)
Charles Foran , Mordecai: The Life and Times (2011)
Ross King , Leonardo and the Last Supper (2012)
Sandra Djwa , Journey with No Maps: A Life of P.K. Page (2013)
Michael John Harris , The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection (2014)
Mark L. Winston , Bee Time: Lessons from the Hive (2015)
Bill Waiser , A World We Have Lost: Saskatchewan Before 1905 (2016)
Graeme Wood , The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State (2017)
Darrel J. McLeod , Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age' (2018)
Don Gillmor , To the River: Losing My Brother (2019)
2020s