An Impossible Blue - by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The long-anticipated, stunning new novel by esteemed author Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, whose last novel, Noopiming, was a Canadian bestseller and shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction and the Dublin Literary Award.

An Impossible Blue is told over the course of six months from the points of view of several different characters, each of whom is navigating their way through grief over the death of Akiwenzii--a central person in each of their lives--alongside the challenges of our present historical moment. Here is a gorgeously written, emotionally affecting, genre-bending novel that explores Nishnaabe webs of social structure--and shows how several different perspectives or truths, seen through the prism of grief, blend to make a larger understanding.
Of An Impossible Blue, Dionne Brand, Editorial Director of Alchemy, writes: "The stories blend myth and the contemporary and try to make a way for their protagonists to live beside and within both. They search for the synergy within worlds, how to live in the contemporary world, the attempt to retrieve the self foreclosed in/and by the contemporary. The work is both narrative and philosophical, and the structure is neither linear nor explanatory, but revelatory."
Here is a rare novel that combines tremendous beauty in the prose with Nishnaabe humour and a generous, expansive spirit in the face of pain and devastation. The voice of each unforgettable character echoes in and through all other voices, creating a work that is much greater than the sum of its parts.

About the Author

LEANNE BETASAMOSAKE SIMPSON is a renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer, and artist, who has been widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation. Her work breaks open the intersections between politics, story, and song--bringing audiences into a rich and layered world of sound, light, and sovereign creativity. Working for two decades as an independent scholar using Nishnaabeg intellectual practices, Leanne has lectured and taught extensively at universities across Canada and the United States and has twenty years experience with Indigenous land-based education. She holds a PhD from the University of Manitoba, and teaches at the Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning in Denendeh.
Leanne is the author of nine other books, including A Short History of the Blockade and the novel Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies, which was shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction and the Dublin Literary Prize. This Accident of Being Lost was a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the Trillium Book Award. Her nonfiction collaboration with Robyn Maynard, Rehearsals for Living, was a national bestseller and shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction.