Author Thomas King, seen in 2014, is the author of 2012’s The Inconvenient Indian as well as other books that touch on Indigenous culture.Peter Power/The Globe and Mail
Thomas King has withdrawn a coming novel from publication after revelations that the author, who has explored themes of racism and isolation through decades of storytelling and scholarship, is not part Cherokee.
StarBright, which had a planned publication date of May, 2026, would have been the ninth instalment in a mystery series about a Cherokee ex-cop. HarperCollins Canada has accepted Mr. King’s decision and will cancel the book’s release, the publisher said Tuesday.
The move follows a Globe and Mail report this week that Mr. King, one of Canada’s most prominent writers, was recently informed he was not Indigenous by a U.S. organization dedicated to exposing false claims of Native American heritage. He does not dispute the finding, which the group arrived at through genealogical research.
Cultural and educational institutions were struggling to make sense of the news, which is circulating internationally and emerging as the latest flashpoint in debates over claimed Indigeneity.
Opinion: A most inconvenient Indian
Mr. King, 82, has been celebrated for a body of work that includes 2020’s Indians on Vacation and 2012’s The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America, as well as many other writings that touch on Indigenous culture.
He told The Globe he had long assumed himself to be of Cherokee descent through his biological grandfather on his father’s side, a man Mr. King said he knew little about beyond what relatives had told him.
HarperCollins Canada had previously told The Globe that its plans to publish StarBright were unchanged.
“We have proudly published Thomas King’s fiction and poetry for over 30 years,” Iris Tupholme, senior vice-president and executive publisher of HarperCollins Canada, said Monday.
The University of Guelph, where Mr. King taught classes in English and Native literature, granted him the title of professor emeritus upon his retirement in 2011.
“Having just learned of the situation yesterday afternoon, the University is preparing to review the situation,” a spokesperson said Tuesday.
Mr. King receives the Governor-General’s Literary Award for fiction from Governor-General David Johnston in 2014.PATRICK DOYLE/The Canadian Press
In Guelph, a university and agricultural city about an hour’s drive west from Toronto, Mr. King’s residency has long been a point of pride. His house, which he built with his wife before they both retired as professors at the University of Guelph, is nestled in a quiet neighbourhood between the Speed River and the sprawling campus.
As revelations about Mr. King’s ancestry spread, community leaders were reflecting on his long-standing place in the city, as a noted scholar and a familiar figure at cultural events such as the nearby Eden Mills Writers’ Festival.
At the Bookshelf, a store that serves as a cultural hub in Guelph’s downtown core, co-owner Stephanie Minett said she reached out to a local educator, who advised the shop to move The Inconvenient Indian from its Indigenous section to “Canadian history.”
But they will continue to carry his books, “as he is a local author who has educated and entertained so many readers.”
Barb Minett, who founded the shop with her husband Doug in 1973, said Mr. King has been a beloved customer and a “gracious and self-deprecating” fixture at the store, which is about a 15-minute walk from his house.
She said she wrote him an e-mail on Monday night to say she hopes he knows “how much people value him and his work.”
“He wrote me back right away and said how much our support meant to him.”
At the University of Guelph campus bookstore, copies of Mr. King’s latest novel, Aliens on the Moon, are among only a few works of fiction on a shelf dominated by books about agricultural science, horticulture, birds and gardening.
Karen Wilson, who has handled book buying there for more than four decades, said she doesn’t expect to be instructed to take them off the shelves.
“I would be surprised,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”
The store will continue to stock his books as usual, Ms. Wilson said, given Mr. King’s long association with the city and his presence on campus.
Recent disputes over claimed Indigeneity – including those involving Joseph Boyden and Buffy Sainte-Marie – have unfolded amid intense public scrutiny. Mr. King is not contesting the genealogical findings, which he said he learned of only this month.
“I didn’t know I didn’t have Cherokee on my father’s side of the family until I saw the genealogical evidence,” he told The Globe. “As soon as I saw it, I was fairly sure it was accurate. It’s pretty clear.”
The Edmonton Opera production of Indians on Vacation, based on Mr. King’s novel of the same name, was cancelled after members of the Indigenous community raised concerns about the show, which was scheduled to premiere Feb. 5.
In an accompanying essay published in The Globe, Mr. King acknowledged a “firestorm that’s coming” over the story, and said he planned to return his National Aboriginal Achievement Award for arts and culture, which he received in 2003.
The Bookshelf’s Barb Minett said she hopes his readers and fans stand by him. “This is real life, not a novel.”