• Age: 14 to 18
• Grade: 9 to 12

After a hunting trip one fall, a family in the far reaches of so-called Canada’s north return to nothing but an empty space where their home once stood. Finding themselves suddenly homeless, they have no choice but to assimilate into settler-colonial society in a mining town that has encroached on their freedom.

An intergenerational coming-of-age novel, This House Is Not a Home follows Kǫ̀, a Dene man who grew up entirely on the land before being taken to residential school. When he finally returns home, he struggles to connect with his family: his younger brother whom he has never met, his mother because he has lost his language, and an absent father whose disappearance he is too afraid to question.

The third book from acclaimed Dene, Cree and Metis writer Katłįà, This House Is Not a Home is a fictional story based on true events. Visceral and embodied, heartbreaking and spirited, this book presents a clear trajectory of how settlers dispossessed Indigenous Peoples of their land — and how Indigenous communities, with dignity and resilience, continue to live and honour their culture, values, inherent knowledge systems, and Indigenous rights towards re-establishing sovereignty. Fierce and unflinching, this story is a call for land back.

Katłıà is a northern Dene novelist specializing in intellectual property law with a focus on mitigating cultural appropriation and creating empowering Indigenous storytelling narratives. Katłįà’s northern homeland and matrilineal lineage inform her storytelling. She is the author of novels This House Is Not a Home and Land-Water-Sky / Ndè-Tı-Yat’a and a memoir, Northern Wildflower, written as Catherine Lafferty. Katłįà is a member of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation from Somba K’e (Yellowknife), Northwest Territories. She currently splits her time between her northern homeland and the occupied and unceded lands of the Coast Salish peoples in lək̓ʷəŋən territory, where she graduated from the University of Victoria with the double law degree Juris Indigenarum Doctor and Juris Doctor. Katłįà is the co-chair of the National Indigenous Housing Network and the Women’s National Housing and Homelessness Network and is working on a constitutional charter rights court challenge for Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people for the right to adequate housing.

Katłıà's profile page

Audiobook narrator for This House Is Not a Home.

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“Absolutely exquisite. Told with such love and gentle ferocity, I’m convinced This House Is Not A Home will never leave those who read it. I am in awe of what I’ve witnessed here. Mahsi cho, Katlia. Bravo!”

Richard Van Camp author of The Lesser Blessed and Moccasin Square Gardens