Decolonization, and the role of art and the imagination in this liberatory enterprise, is at the heart of As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance (University of Minnesota Press), a book published late last year by the Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg writer, artist, and scholar Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. That idea is also at the centre of this conversation between Simpson and the celebrated poet, novelist, and critic Dionne Brand, whose writings explore the politics of race and resistance.
Simpson and Brand spoke in Toronto last month. Their conversation was moderated by Idil Abdillahi, assistant professor in Ryerson University’s school of social work, and a longtime activist. This is an edited transcript.
Dionne Brand has won numerous awards for her poetry, including the Governor General’s Award, the Griffin Poetry Prize, the Trillium Book Award, the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, and the Harbourfront Festival Prize. In 2009, she was Toronto’s Poet Laureate.
Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg writer, artist, and scholar Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a member of Alderville First Nation. She is the author of the short-story collections Islands of Decolonial Love and This Accident of Being Lost, a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize in 2017.
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