Fifty years ago, Markoosie Patsauq, then a bush pilot in his late twenties living in the tiny, isolated High Arctic community of Resolute, spent his spare time quietly writing a story that effectively emerged as the first Indigenous novel released in Canada. Published in English under the title Harpoon of the Hunter in 1970 by McGill-Queen's University Press, that version of the story was Patsauq's own adaptation. In the years that followed the widely acclaimed English edition was translated into many different languages, but what has remained obscured until the present day is the Inuktitut text originally produced by the author.

In collaboration with Patsauq, Valerie Henitiuk and Marc-Antoine Mahieu have foregrounded the original Inuktitut text to inform their translations into both English and French. This critical edition, complete with the story in both Inuktitut syllabics and Latin script, utilizes the author's handwritten manuscript as well as interviews with Patsauq to produce a new, rigorous examination of this literary and cultural milestone. This work also includes the first comprehensive account of the critical response to his writing while underscoring the way the much-altered English adaptation from 1970 shaped that response.

A momentous achievement that situates a new classic in the twenty-first century, Hunter with Harpoon brings readers back to the roots of Markoosie Patsauq's Inuit story to experience it as it was originally written.

Markoosie Patsauq (1941-2020) was a writer, retired pilot, and community leader. He lived near Inukjuak, Nunavik.

Markoosie Patsauq's profile page

Valerie Henitiuk is the executive director of the Centre for the Advancement of Faculty Excellence, and professor in the Department of English at MacEwan University. Her research focuses primarily on translation studies, world literature, Japanese literature, and women’s writing. She is also editor-in-chief of the journal Translation Studies.

Valerie Henitiuk's profile page

Marc-Antoine Mahieu is professor of Inuktitut at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales, Université Sorbonne Paris Cité, and consultant for the Kativik school board in Nunavik.

Marc-Antoine Mahieu's profile page

"Both a pivotal work of Indigenous fiction and an effort to acknowledge and correct injustices, Hunter with Harpoon is a testament to the resilience of the Inuit people." Foreword Reviews

«Uumajursiutik unaatuinnamut priorise l’écrit en inuktitut pour sa valeur en soi et dans ses propres termes. Enfin, la collaboration entre Henitiuk, Mahieu et Patsauq contribue à donner une visibilité à un auteur à la langue riche et vivante et à une culture littéraire proprement inuit.» Anthropologie et Sociétés

“The value of Uumajursiutik unaatuinnamut / Hunter with Harpoon / Chasseur au harpon as a rich primary source for further research, new translations, and indeed activism cannot be overstated. Meanwhile, the book as a whole is a powerful illustration of the epistemological capacity of contemporary Translation Studies. Through their personal and scholarly ambition, eloquence, and integrity, Henitiuk, Mahieu, and Markoosie remind us here that translation is always the story at the heart of storytelling.” Traduction, terminologie, rédaction