Kiss of the Fur Queen is a powerful and beautiful tale of siblings and tricksters, culture and trauma, and finding yourself in a world that tries to tell you who you are.
Born into a magical Cree world in snowy northern Manitoba, Champion and Ooneemeetoo Okimasis are all too soon torn from their family and thrust into the hostile world of a Catholic residential school. Their language is forbidden, their names are changed to Jeremiah and Gabriel, and both boys are abused by priests.

As young men, estranged from their own people and alienated from the culture imposed upon them, the Okimasis brothers fight to survive. But wherever they go, the Fur Queen—a wily, shape-shifting trickster—watches over them as they fulfill their destiny to become artists.

Tomson Highway was born near Maria Lake, Manitoba in 1951. His father, Joe, was a hunter, fisherman and sled-dog racer, and his family lived a nomadic lifestyle. With no access to books, television or radio, Highway’s parents would tell their children stories; thus began Highway’s life-long interest in the oral tradition of storytelling. When he was six, Highway was taken from his family and placed in residential school in The Pas; he subsequently went to high school in Winnipeg and then travelled to London to study at the University of Western Ontario, earning a music degree in 1975 and a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1976. Instead of becoming a professional concert musician as he had at one point contemplated, however, Highway decided instead to dedicate his life to the service of his people. Fluent in Cree, English and French, he was for six years the artistic director of Native Earth Performing Arts, the first and most enduring Native professional company in Canada which he also helped found. From 1975 to 1978 Highway worked as a cultural worker for the Native Peoples’ Resource Centre. He has worked for the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Culture and also for the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres as a program analyst. From 1983 to 1985 he worked as a freelance theatre artist before becoming the artistic director of the De-ba-jeh-mu-jig Theatre Company in 1986. He has been writer-in-residence at the University of Toronto, University of British Columbia, and Concordia University. Tomson Highway is widely recognized for his tremendous contribution to the development of Aboriginal theatre in both Canada and around the world. In 1994, he was inducted into the Order of Canada, the first Aboriginal writer to be so honoured.

Tomson Highway's profile page

• Nominated, Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Award - Fiction Book of the Year
• Nominated, Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award

"Tomson Highway's prose is beautiful, lyrical. . . . Emotionally complex, witty, symphonic and sad, Kiss of the Fur Queen is a remarkable novel, filled with blood and guts, life and love." —The Vancouver Sun
"Kiss of the Fur Queen is a novel of affirmation . . . a book full of feeling for the North [that] displays startling human insight. . . . A novel that dances with life." —The Globe and Mail
"Highway's depiction of the brothers' trapline births are among the most haunting and evocative pieces of writing to ever appear in Canadian literature. The playful yet hallowed tone of these early passages is pure magic. . . . The novel remains, at its core, a celebration of survival and of life lived." —Quill & Quire

"In a book that is both hard-hitting and whimsical, [Tomson Highway] offers a soulful look into the often transient nature of identity." —National Post

"Tomson Highway's first novel is made poignant by its passion and pain, but it is rendered charming and magical by a title character conjured up as a fatal beauty. . . . An affecting tale [of] fine satiric sense and linguistic play." —Toronto Star

"Kiss of the Fur Queen is, above all, a deeply personal statement. . . . The writing is superb in this book. . . . Reading [Highway's] prose often gives one the feeling of looking through a spiritual veil. . . . A born story-teller and entertainer." —The Star Phoenix

"[Kiss of the Fur Queen] pulses with life and humour and manages to meld the conventional English novel format with free-flowing fantastical native stories to create a new art form—a sort of Salinger on snowshoes. . . . [Highway has] a way of making words sound like music." —Times Colonist