Cherie Dimaline () is a Canadian writer who is a member of the Georgian Bay Métis Council of the Métis Nation of Ontario. She has written a variety of award-winning novels and other acclaimed stories and articles. She is most noted for her 2017 young adult novel The Marrow Thieves, which explores the continued colonial exploitation of Indigenous people.
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In addition to The Marrow Thieves, Dimaline has won the award for Fiction Book of the Year at the Anskohk Aboriginal Literature Festival for her first novel, Red Rooms. She has since published the short stories "Seven Gifts for Cedar", the novel The Girl Who Grew a Galaxy, and the short story collection A Gentle Habit. She is the 2019 editor of Little Bird Stories (Volume IX), published by Invisible Publishing and featuring winners of the annual Little Bird Writing Contest run by Sarah Selecky Writing School.[1]
She was founding editor of Muskrat Magazine, was named the Emerging Artist of the Year at the Ontario Premier's Awards for Excellence in Arts in 2014, and became the first Aboriginal writer in residence for the Toronto Public Library.[2]
Her latest novel, VenCo, was published in 2023.[3]
Dimaline was originally a resident of a Métis community in the Georgian Bay area. She now resides in the city of Toronto.[4] Her childhood summers were spent back in her Métis community.[5] During the time spent back home, Dimaline learned stories from her family that she was then able to pass onto her cousins.[6][5] Growing up, she worked as a magician's assistant. From then on, Dimaline worked a variety of jobs, being employed as a curator for a museum, high-level manager for an investment company, and a director of a women's resource center.[5]
In addition to her own authorship, Dimaline has contributed to a variety of projects including the anthology Mitêwâcimowina: Indigenous Science Fiction and Speculative Storytelling published in 2016.[7] Dimaline was also a columnist and editor for Chatelaine magazine in the early 2000s, writing a variety of articles for the magazine.
Dimaline considers herself exclusively a Métis or Indigenous writer, saying "I would love to be recognized as a writer of Indigenous stories. I'm not a Canadian writer. This is what is now known as Canada; it means something different to and for me."[8]
Dimaline has participated in numerous literary festivals, including Kingston WritersFest (2016),[10] Toronto International Festival of Authors (2016, 2018, 2019),[11] Ottawa Writers Festival (2017, 2018, 2019, 2023),[12] Wordfest Imaginairium (2019, 2023), [13] and the Vancouver Writers Festival (2020, 2021, 2023). [14]
Books
- Red Rooms (2007)
- Seven Gifts for Cedar (2010)
- A Gentle Habit (2015)
- The Marrow Thieves (2017)
- Empire of Wild (2019)
- Little Bird Stories, Volume 9 (2019)
- Hunting by Stars (2021)
- VenCo (2023)
- An Anthology of Monsters: How Story Saves Us from Our Anxiety (2023)
- Tiger Lily and the Secret Treasure of Neverland (2023)
- Funeral Songs for Dying Girls (2023)
- Into the Bright Open (2023)
Short Stories
- Tick Talk in Never Whistle At Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology (September, 19th, 2023) [15]
The Marrow Thieves has been widely acclaimed for its portrayal of Indigenous colonization and ecological devastation.[19] The book has been lauded for its ability to crossover from YA fiction to adult fiction,[20] especially as it was defended by Jully Black as a finalist in the 2018 Canada Reads competition.[21] Dimaline's novels have also been discussed in academia, notably by Niranjana Iyer[22] and Petra Fachinger.[23]
Justice, Daniel (2018). Why Indigenous Literatures Matter. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. p. 284. ISBN 9781771121767. Iyer, Niranjana (2019). "The Importance of Dreams: Cherie Dimalines Dystopic Novel, The Marrow Thieves, is a Reconciliation Wake-up Call". Herizons. 32: 29–33 – via Gale Onefile.
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