Press release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Toronto; January 16, 2023)

HarperCollinsCanada is excited to share a cover reveal for the forthcoming publication of Truth Telling: Seven Conversations about Indigenous Life in Canada, a collection of essays about the contemporary Indigenous experience in Canada by award-winning author and advocate Michelle Good. Publishing May 30, 2023, Truth Telling is a bold and provocative examination of Indigenous issues from resistance and reconciliation to the resurgence and reclamation of Indigenous power. With authority, intelligence, and insight, Good delves into how colonialism underpins social institutions in Canada, exposing the human cost and how it prevents meaningful and substantive reconciliation.

The cover for Truth Telling features a powerful original illustration by Ojibwe artist Jim Oskineegish. Oskineegish is a registered member of the Eabametoong First Nation which is located in northwestern Ontario, Canada. Oskineegish paints in the Shamanistic Woodland Style using bold lines and bright colours. He loves to paint legends and stories of his people and hopes that his art can bridge a universal understanding of love, faith, and unity.

Good’s previous novel, the national bestseller Five Little Indians, was the winner of the HarperCollinsPublishersLtd/UBC Prize for Best New Fiction, the Amazon First Novel Award, the Governor General’s Literary Award and the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize; it was also longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and was a finalist for the Writer’s Trust Award. Five Little Indians was the winner of CBC’s Canada Reads 2022 and the Toronto Star’s bestselling Canadian fiction title in 2022. HarperCollinsCanada’s executive editor Janice Zawerbny, who edited Five Little Indians, says, “In Truth Telling, Michelle applies her intelligence and insight to a variety of important historical and contemporary Indigenous issues. This book is a natural extension of Five Little Indians and the discussions it raised about the Indigenous experience in Canada. From racism, broken treaties, and cultural pillaging to the value of Indigenous lives and the importance of Indigenous literature, Truth Telling is essential reading.”

Truth Telling’s impactful, timely essays cement Good as not only an important storyteller and literary talent but also a mediagenic expert and go-to authority on matters of Indigenous justice and reconciliation with her ability to inspire, educate, and connect with both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada. As Good explains, “Watching Five Little Indians reach the hands, hearts, and minds of hundreds of thousands of Canadians, it was clear to me that there is a sudden willingness to engage in critical conversations about the truth of Canadian history as experienced by Indigenous people. These essays are an invitation, not a declaration. An invitation to non-Indigenous Canadians to reconsider what they think they know about Indigenous Peoples, to critically consider the historical myths they’ve been spoon-fed in the quest for colonial domination and to inspire in them a quest for truth and a demand for justice.”

MICHELLE GOOD is a writer of Cree ancestry and a member of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. After three decades of working with Indigenous communities and organizations, she obtained her law degree. She earned her MFA in creative writing at UBC while still practising law. Her novel, Five Little Indians, was nominated for the Writers’ Trust Award for Fiction and the Scotiabank Giller Prize. It received the HarperCollins/UBC Prize for Best New Fiction, the Amazon First Novel Award, the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize and the Governor General’s Award for Fiction. Five Little Indians was also chosen for Canada Reads 2022. Michelle Good’s poems, short stories and essays have been published in magazines and anthologies across Canada.

To request an interview with Michelle Good or an advance reading copy of Truth Telling for potential coverage, please contact:

Cindy Ma, Senior Publicist [email protected]

About HarperCollins Publishers:

Known worldwide for the quality of its list, HarperCollinsCanada is the proud home of many bestselling
authors, including Thomas King, Zoe Whittall, Esi Edugyan, Michelle Good, Heather O’Neill, Lawrence Hill,
Kamal Al-Solaylee, Mark Sakamoto, Catherine Hernandez, Emily St. John Mandel, Tracey Lindberg, Tara
Westover, Jody Wilson-Raybould, Rachel Cusk, David A. Robertson, Uzma Jalaluddin, Kim Fu, Karen
McBride, Jordan Tannahill, Jael Richardson, and Helen Humphreys, among many more found
at harpercollins.ca.

HarperCollins Publishers is the second-largest consumer book publisher in the world, with operations in
17 countries. With 200 years of history and more than 120 branded imprints around the world,
HarperCollins publishes approximately 10,000 new books every year in 16 languages, and has a print and
digital catalog of more than 200,000 titles. Writing across dozens of genres, HarperCollins authors
include winners of the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Newbery and
Caldecott Medals, and the Booker Prize. HarperCollins, headquartered in New York, is a subsidiary of News
Corp (Nasdaq: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV) and can be visited online at corporate.HC.com.