• Age: 15
• Grade: 10

"An unforgettable work of art." -- National Post

"Richard Wagamese's writing is exceptional not only for its sensitivity but for a warmth that extends beyond the page. With a finely calibrated hand, he explores heritage, identity, nature, salvation, and gratitude in works that quietly celebrate storytelling's vitality and power to transcend." -- Georgia Straight

Saul Indian Horse is dying. Tucked away in a hospice high above the clash and clang of a big city, he embarks on a marvellous journey of imagination back through the life he led as a northern Ojibway, with all its sorrows and joys.

With compassion and insight, author Richard Wagamese traces through his fictional characters the decline of a culture and a cultural way. For Saul, taken forcibly from the land and his family when he's sent to residential school, salvation comes for a while through his incredible gifts as a hockey player. But in the harsh realities of 1960s Canada, he battles obdurate racism and the spirit-destroying effects of cultural alienation and displacement.

Indian Horse unfolds against the bleak loveliness of northern Ontario, all rock, marsh, bog and cedar. Wagamese writes with a spare beauty, penetrating the heart of a remarkable Ojibway man. Drawing on his great-grandfather's mystical gift of vision, Saul Indian Horse comes to recognize the influence of everyday magic on his own life. In this wise and moving novel, Richard Wagamese shares that gift of magic with readers as well.

Richard Wagamese (1955–2017), an Ojibway from the Wabaseemoong First Nation in northwestern Ontario, was recognized as one of Canada's foremost First Nations authors and storytellers. His debut novel, Keeper 'n Me, came out in 1994 and won the Alberta Writers Guild's Best Novel Award. In 1991, he became the first Indigenous writer to win a National Newspaper Award for column writing. He twice won the Native American Press Association Award for his journalism and received the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature for his 2011 memoir One Story, One Song. In 2012, he was honoured with the Aboriginal Achievement Award for Media and Communications, and in 2013 he received the Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prize. In 2015, he won the Matt Cohen Award, a recognition given out by the Writers' Trust of Canada that honours writers who have dedicated their entire professional lives to the pursuit of writing. In total, he authored fifteen books including Indian Horse (2012), the 2013 People's Choice winner in CBC's Canada Reads competition, and his final book, a collection of Ojibway meditations, Embers (2016), received the Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice Award.

Richard Wagamese's profile page

Indian Horse

In this novel, Wagamese writes beautifully about the life-crushing racism towards First Nations people in the 1960s. Saul Indian Horse has grown up in the bush, with the teachings of his grandmother. After his brother and sister are taken away, his grandmother hides him, then dies trying to take him to safety. Saul calls residential school “hell on earth” but grows numb to the horrors around him, learning to become invisible. Hockey becomes his outlet, his passion and his saving grace but his outstanding talent can’t compete with the prejudice of white society. After landing in a treatment centre, Saul realizes he must journey back through his repressed memories and emotions. Aided by his great-grandfather’s mystical vision, Saul’s broken spirit begins to heal.

Wagamese is Ojibway from Northern Ontario.

Caution: Includes references to abuse and alcohol use.

Indian Horse

In this novel, Wagamese writes beautifully about the darkest aspects of life-crushing racism towards First Nations people in the 1960s. Saul Indian Horse has grown up in the bush, with the teachings of his grandmother. After his brother and sister are taken away, his grandmother hides him, then dies trying to take him to safety. Saul calls residential school “hell on earth” but grows numb to the heartbreaking horrors around him, learning to become invisible. Hockey becomes his outlet, his passion and his saving grace but his outstanding talent can’t compete with the prejudice of white society. After landing in a treatment centre, Saul realizes he must journey back through his repressed memories and emotions. Aided by his great-grandfather’s mystical vision, Saul’s broken spirit begins to heal.

An award winner, Wagamese is Ojibway from Northern Ontario.

Caution: Includes references to abuse and alcohol use.

Indian Horse

by Iudita

Books that make an impact on you are few and far between but this book definitely hit the mark for me. I loved the writing, the imagery, the characters. Absolutely everything about it.