“I had to find out about Annie,” said Talaga on\u00a0Bookends with Mattea Roach<\/a>.\u00a0“I was just enraptured by her. I mean, she’s been a mystery for my entire family for over 80 years.<\/p>\n “Part of the reason why I wrote this book … was to empower other First Nations people to do the same thing, to try and look back. And by looking back in our family trees, we’re going to find those people that are crying out to be found. They need to be recognized and heard.”<\/p>\n The Knowing<\/a>\u00a0is also a four-part documentary,\u00a0which can be streamed on CBC Gem<\/a>.<\/p>\n Talaga is a journalist, author and filmmaker of Anishinaabe and Polish descent and a member of the Fort William First Nation. Talaga also wrote the nonfiction work\u00a0Seven Fallen Feathers<\/a>,\u00a0which also won\u00a0the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing in 2018,\u00a0the RBC Taylor Prize and\u00a0the First Nation Communities Read: Young Adult\/Adult Award.<\/p>\n She gave the\u00a0CBC Massey Lecture<\/a>\u00a0in 2018, titled\u00a0All Our Relations<\/a>,\u00a0where she explored\u00a0the legacy of cultural genocide against Indigenous peoples.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Canada Reads<\/a>-winning author\u00a0Alexis is shortlisted for his short story collection\u00a0Other Worlds<\/a>. Spanning from 19th-century Trinidad and Tobago to a small town in Ontario, from Amherst, Massachusetts to modern-day Toronto,\u00a0Other Worlds<\/a>\u00a0explores characters encountering moments of profound puzzlement in these diverse settings.\u00a0<\/p>\n Alexis was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, and raised in Ottawa. His debut novel,\u00a0Childhood<\/a>, won the Books in Canada First Novel Award (now known as the Amazon First Novel Award) and the Trillium Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Scotiabank\u00a0Giller Prize<\/a>\u00a0and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.<\/p>\n His other books include\u00a0Pastoral<\/a>,\u00a0Asylum<\/a>,\u00a0The Hidden Keys<\/a>, Despair and Other Stories of Ottawa\u00a0and\u00a0Days by Moonlight<\/a>, which won the\u00a02019 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize<\/a>\u00a0and was on the\u00a02019 Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Andr\u00e9 Alexis’s novel\u00a0Fifteen Dogs<\/a>, championed by\u00a0Humble The Poet<\/a>, won\u00a0Canada Reads<\/a>\u00a02017 and the 2015 Scotiabank\u00a0Giller Prize<\/a>.<\/p>\n The 6-book shortlist is rounded out by Roza Nozari, Maddie Helwig, Vinh Nguyen and Chika Stacey Oriuwa.<\/p>\n Nozari is shortlisted for her\u00a0memoir about embracing her identity as a queer Iranian Canadian woman,\u00a0All the Parts We Exile<\/a>.\u00a0Helwig is recognized for her book, Encampment<\/a>,\u00a0which tells of\u00a0her work to provide shelter for the unhoused.\u00a0Nguyen’s\u00a0memoir The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse<\/a>\u00a0is\u00a0about his family’s journey from Vietnam to Canada, and\u00a0Oriuwa\u00a0writes about her path to becoming a doctor as the only Black student in her medical school class in\u00a0Unlike The Rest<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/the-knowing-by-tanya-talaga.jpg\")
(HarperCollins)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/book-cover-other-worlds-by-andre-alexis.jpg\")
(McClelland & Stewart)<\/p>\n