Thomas King (novelist)

Thomas King
Born April 24, 1943
Sacramento, California
Occupation Novelist, broadcaster
Nationality United States - Canadian (Dual)
Period Contemporary
Genre Postmodern, trickster novel
Subject First Nations
Notable works Medicine River; Green Grass, Running Water; The Truth about Stories
Notable awards Order of Canada Member (2004)

Thomas King, CM (born 24 April 1943) is a noted American-Canadian novelist and broadcaster who most often writes about North America's First Nations. He is an advocate for First Nations causes. He is of Cherokee and Greek/German-American descent. In 2003, King was invited to give the Massey Lecture in Canada, the first person of aboriginal descent to be chosen. He has dual United States-Canadian citizenship.

Early life and education

Thomas King was born in Sacramento, California in 1943, to a father who was Cherokee and a mother who was of Greek and Swiss German descent. He had a brother. King says his father left the family when the boys were very young and that they were raised almost entirely by their mother.[1] In his series of Massey Lectures, eventually published as a book The Truth About Stories (2003), King tells that after their father’s death, he and his brother learned that their father had had two other families, neither of whom knew about the others.[1]

As a child, King attended grammar school in Roseville, California, and both private Catholic and public high schools. After flunking out of Sacramento State University, he joined the Navy for a brief period of time before receiving a medical discharge for a knee injury. Following this King worked several jobs, including as an ambulance driver, bank teller, and photojournalist in New Zealand for three years.

King eventually completed bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Chico State University in California. He moved to Utah, where he worked as a counselor for aboriginal students before completing a Ph.D. program in English at the University of Utah. His 1971 PhD dissertation was on Native Studies, one of the earliest of works to explore the oral storytelling tradition as literature.[2] Around this time, King became interested in aboriginal oral traditions and storytelling.[2]

After moving to Canada in 1980, King taught Native Studies at the University of Lethbridge in the early 1980s. King also served as a faculty member of the University of Minnesota's American Indian Studies Department. King is currently an English professor at the University of Guelph and lives in Guelph, Ontario.

King was chosen to deliver the 2003 Massey Lectures, entitled The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative.[3] King was the first Massey lecturer of Aboriginal descent. King explored the Native experience in oral stories, literature, history, religion and politics, popular culture and social protest in order to make sense of North America’s relationship with its Aboriginal peoples.

Activism

King has criticized policies and programs of both the United States and Canadian governments in many interviews and books.[1] He is worried about aboriginal prospects and rights in North America. He says that he fears that aboriginal culture, and specifically aboriginal land, will continue to be taken away from aboriginal peoples until there is nothing left to them at all. In his 2013 book The Inconvenient Indian, King says, “The issue has always been land. It will always be land, until there isn’t a square foot of land left in North America that is controlled by Native people.”.[4]

King also discusses policies regarding aboriginal status. He noted that legislatures in the 1800s withdrew aboriginal status from persons who graduated from university or joined the army. King has also worked to identify North American laws that make it complicated to claim status in the first place, for example the American Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 or Canada’s 1985 Bill C-31. Bill C-31 was amended to allow aboriginal women and their children to reclaim status, which the bill had previously withdrawn if the woman married a non-status man. King explains that the amended bill, though progressive for women who had lost their status, threatens the status of future generations because of its limitations.[1]

Writings

King has been writing novels, children’s books, and collections of stories since the 1980s. His notable works include A Coyote Columbus Story (1992) and Green Grass, Running Water (1993), both of which were nominated for a Governor General’s Award;[2] and The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America (2012), which won the 2014 RBC Taylor Prize.[5]

King's writing style incorporates oral storytelling structures with traditional Western narrative. He writes in a conversational tone; for example, in Green Grass, Running Water, the narrator argues with some of the characters. In The Truth About Stories (2003), King addresses the reader as if in a conversation with responses. King uses a variety of anecdotes and humorous narratives while maintaining a serious message in a way that has been compared to the style of trickster legends in Native American culture.

Politics

In April 2007 King announced that he would be seeking the New Democratic Party (NDP) nomination for Guelph. On March 30, 2007 King was acclaimed as the NDP candidate for Guelph. Present at the nomination meeting was NDP leader Jack Layton.[6] A by-election was called in the riding due to the resignation of incumbent Liberal Member of Parliament Brenda Chamberlain effective April 7, 2008. Scheduled for September 8, 2008, the by-election was cancelled with the calling of the October 14, 2008 federal general election. King finished fourth behind Liberal candidate Frank Valeriote, Conservative candidate Gloria Kovach and Green candidate Mike Nagy.

Other work

In the 1990s, he served as story editor for Four Directions,[7] a CBC Television drama anthology series about First Nations which was held up by production and scheduling delays before finally airing in 1996.[8] He also wrote the teleplay "Borders", an adaptation of his own previously published short story, for the series.[8]

From 1997 to 2000, King wrote and acted in a CBC radio show, The Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour, which featured a fictitious town and a fictitious radio program hosted by three Native American characters. Elements were adapted from his novel, Green Grass, Running Water. The broadcast was a political and social satire with dark humour and mocking stereotypes.

In July 2007, King made his directorial debut with I'm Not The Indian You Had In Mind, a short film which he wrote.[9]

Personal life

His partner is Helen Hoy, a professor and coordinator of Women's Studies at the University of Guelph. She has written a study, How Should I Read These? Native Women Writers in Canada (2001). They have children, including a son Benjamin, who is beginning to play with his father in the Guelph Native Men's Circle of drummers.[2]

Bibliography

King also wrote The Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour which aired on CBC Radio from 1997 to 2000, and its sequels, which aired in 2002 and 2006.

Awards and recognition

Electoral record

Guelph - Canadian federal election, 2008
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
LiberalFrank Valeriote 18,977 32.22% -6.17
ConservativeGloria Kovach 17,185 29.18% -0.57
GreenMike Nagy 12,456 21.15% +12.43
New DemocraticTom King 9,709 16.49% -5.51
MarijuanaKornelis Kleverling 172 0.27% N/A
LibertarianPhilip Bender 159 0.27% N/A
CommunistDrew Garvie 77 0.13% -0.05
Animal AllianceKaren Levenson 73 0.12% N/A
IndependentJohn Turmel 58 0.10% N/A
Marxist–LeninistManuel Couto 29 0.05% -0.02

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 CBC Radio One The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative, Ideas. Massey Lectures 2003, 7 November 2003. Retrieved on: April 7, 2014.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 An Interview With Thomas King, Canadian Literature, Retrieved on April 7, 2014.
  3. ↑ CBC Radio One The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative Ideas. Massey Lectures 2003. Retrieved on: September 7, 2007.
  4. ↑ Macleans Thomas King Asks: What do Whites Want?, Macleans, Retrieved April 7, 2014
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Thomas King wins $25K RBC Taylor Prize for non-fiction". CBC News, March 10, 2014.
  6. ↑ Tom King acclaimed as federal NDP candidate. The Fountain Pen, Guelph, Ontario. Retrieved on: September 7, 2007.
  7. ↑ "Writer urges CBC to let natives tell their own stories". Toronto Star, November 20, 1993.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "CBC finally releases stirring aboriginal dramas". Ottawa Citizen, November 24, 1996.
  9. ↑ National Screen Institute, I’m Not the Indian You Had in Mind. Retrieved on: June 16, 2012.
  10. ↑ "Thomas King, Bev Sellars among finalists for 2014 Burt Award for First Nations, Métis and Inuit Literature". Quill & Quire, September 3, 2014.
  11. ↑ "Thomas King wins Governor General’s award for fiction". The Globe and Mail, November 18, 2014.

References

External links