Winner, 2024 Blue Metropolis First Peoples Prize, for the whole of her work
Finalist, 2018 Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding
Finalist, 2018 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction

Tanya Talaga, the bestselling author of Seven Fallen Feathers, calls attention to an urgent global humanitarian crisis among Indigenous Peoples — youth suicide.

“Talaga’s research is meticulous and her journalistic style is crisp and uncompromising. She brings each story to life, skillfully weaving the stories of the youths’ lives, deaths, and families together with sharp analysis… The book is heartbreaking and infuriating, both an important testament to the need for change and a call to action.” — Publishers Weekly *Starred Review*

“Talaga has crafted an urgent and unshakable portrait of the horrors faced by Indigenous teens going to school in Thunder Bay, Ontario… Talaga’s incisive research and breathtaking storytelling could bring this community one step closer to the healing it deserves.” — Booklist *Starred Review*

In this urgent and incisive work, bestselling and award-winning author Tanya Talaga explores the alarming rise of youth suicide in Indigenous communities in Canada and beyond. From Northern Ontario to Nunavut, Norway, Brazil, Australia, and the United States, the Indigenous experience in colonized nations is startlingly similar and deeply disturbing. It is an experience marked by the violent separation of Peoples from the land, the separation of families, and the separation of individuals from traditional ways of life — all of which has culminated in a spiritual separation that has had an enduring impact on generations of Indigenous children. As a result of this colonial legacy, too many communities today lack access to the basic determinants of health — income, employment, education, a safe environment, health services — leading to a mental health and youth suicide crisis on a global scale. But, Talaga reminds us, First Peoples also share a history of resistance, resilience, and civil rights activism.

Based on her Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy series, All Our Relations is a powerful call for action, justice, and a better, more equitable world for all Indigenous Peoples.

TANYA TALAGA is of Anishinaabe and Polish descent and was born and raised in Toronto. Her mother was raised on the traditional territory of Fort William First Nation and Treaty 9. Her father is Polish Canadian. Tanya is a proud member of Fort William First Nation.

She is the acclaimed author of the national bestseller Seven Fallen Feathers, which won the RBC Taylor Prize, the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing and the First Nation Communities Read: Young Adult/Adult Award; was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction and the BC National Award for Non-Fiction; and was CBC’s Nonfiction Book of the Year and a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book.

Talaga was the 2017–2018 Atkinson Fellow in Public Policy, the 2018 CBC Massey Lecturer and is the author of the national bestseller All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward. For more than twenty years she was a journalist at the Toronto Star and is now a regular columnist at the Globe and Mail.

Talaga's third book, The Knowing, based on her family's experience in residential schools, will be published in late summer, 2024.

Tanya Talaga is the founder of Makwa Creative, a production company formed to elevate Indigenous voices and stories through documentary films and podcasts. In 2021, she founded the charity, the Spirit to Soar Fund, which is aimed at improving the lives of First Nations youth living in northern Ontario. Talaga has five honorary doctorates.

Tanya Talaga's profile page

• Winner, Blue Metropolis First Peoples Prize, for the whole of her work
• Short-listed, Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction
• Short-listed, Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding
• Commended, A Hill Times Book of the Year
• Commended, A CBC Book of the Year
• Commended, A Globe and Mail Book of the Year

An essential work of nonfiction . . . Through storytelling, on-the-ground reporting, literature surveys, and plenty of statistics, Talaga demonstrates the extent to which Indigenous children continue to live under the full weight of colonial history . . . All children, she writes, ‘need to know who their ancestors are, who their heroes and villains are.’ In All Our Relations, Talaga restores that basic right to Indigenous children who have been robbed of it. And the rest of us, as an epigraph from author Thomas King makes clear, no longer have the excuse of saying we haven’t heard this story. Talaga alone has told it twice now.

Quill and Quire

Talaga’s passion for the topic is palpable as she shares eye-opening stories and heartbreaking statistics . . . Thoughtful and thought-provoking.

Pavati Magazine

This book is both moving and effective; it creates the space for readers to understand the complexity of these issues . . . An excellent read.

Ottawa Review of Books

Talaga’s treatment and explanation of Indigenous people’s trauma is essential reading.

Irish Times

All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward is an impeccably researched and unflinching documentation of how both colonial histories and ongoing genocidal practices have created the suicide crisis among Indigenous youth across the globe. Tanya Talaga expertly folds together interviews, storytelling, and statistics to bring us directly to the startling truth that Indigenous youth are fighting to find themselves through the multiple separations forced on them by settler states: separation of parents from children, separation of peoples from their land, and separation of tongues and hearts from their languages and traditions. All Our Relations is a call to action and a testament to the strength and tenacity of Indigenous people around the world.

Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction Jury Citation