Capital City Press Featured Writer Dr. Adriana Oniță says of this list: “Did you know that one in four people in amiskwacîwâskahikan / Edmonton have a mother tongue other than English or French? This list showcases ten outstanding local books and magazines featuring multilingual work by Indigenous and immigrant authors living in our city. These collections fluidly move between two or more languages, incorporate words and philosophies from other tongues, or are translated in English from another language.”
This poetry book gracefully dances between nêhiyawêwin, the Plains Cree language, and English, delving into themes of language loss and reclamation, family histories, and intertwined identities. Naomi McIlwraith, with her unique Cree, Ojibwe,…
Iman Mersal, a world-renowned poet residing in our city, writes in Arabic. This collection, artfully translated by Robyn Creswell, is the type of book you carry around for decades. Each poem brims with precise and often humorous snapshots of daily…
In this memoir-like poetry collection, Pierrette Requier lovingly mixes English and français to tell vivid stories of her upbringing in a large francophone family in Northern Alberta. Few writers have experimented with bilingual poetry as boldly as…
The stunning tenth issue of The Polyglot—a local magazine I founded in 2016—features writing and art by participants of two emerging writer mentorship programs: the Writers’ Guild of Alberta Horizons Writers Circle and Own Voices Alberta. Edited by…
A culinary and literary feast! This anthology, published by Edmonton-based Laberinto Press, features fourteen creative non-fiction essays where food, heritage, politics, and language intersect in intriguing ways. I’m honoured to have contributed an…
Peter Midgley, one of the most prolific Edmontonian authors, has published works in Afrikaans, English, and isiXhosa. This book, a finalist for the 2020 Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry, powerfully depicts the devastating legacy of…
In this must-read book, Marilyn Dumont, one of Canada's most celebrated Métis poets, infuses memory and history to paint a vivid picture of Métis resistance and identity. She beautifully weaves words from the Michif language into her work (“the same…
There is a reason why this brilliant book by local author Emily Riddle recently won the inaugural Griffin Canadian First Book Prize. The jury, which included Nikola Madzirov, Gregory Scofield, and Natasha Trethewey, encapsulated it perfectly: “Emily…
Anna Marie Sewell, Edmonton’s 4th Poet Laureate, frequently integrates her Indigenous and heritage languages in her writing and collaborative projects, including her dad’s Ojibwe/Anishinaabemowin, her mom’s Polish, and her grandpa’s Mi'gmaq. For the…
This eleventh issue of The Polyglot features striking and innovative poems, translations, essays, art, and stories weaving seventeen languages: Anishnaabemowin, Afrikaans, Arabic, Belarusian, Cantonese, Efik, English, French, Galician, isiXhosa,…
