The Knowing [Tanya Talaga]

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER | SHORTLISTED FOR THE TORONTO BOOK AWARD | FINALIST FOR THE SHAUGHNESSY COHEN PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING | SHORTLISTED FOR THE RODERICK HAIG-BROWN REGIONAL PRIZE | WINNER OF THE CRIME WRITERS’ OF CANADA BRASS KNUCKLES AWARD | SHORTLISTED FOR THE INDIGENOUS VOICES AWARDS

From Tanya Talaga, the critically acclaimed and award-winning author of Seven Fallen Feathers, comes a riveting exploration of her family’s story and a retelling of the history of the country we now call Canada

For generations, Indigenous People have known that their family members disappeared, many of them after being sent to residential schools, “Indian hospitals” and asylums through a coordinated system designed to destroy who the First Nations, Métis and Inuit people are. This is one of Canada’s greatest open secrets, an unhealed wound that until recently lay hidden by shame and abandonment.

The Knowing is the unfolding of Canadian history unlike anything we have ever read before. Award-winning and bestselling Anishinaabe author Tanya Talaga retells the history of this country as only she can—through an Indigenous lens, beginning with the life of her great-great-grandmother Annie Carpenter and her family as they experienced decades of government- and Church-sanctioned enfranchisement and genocide.

Deeply personal and meticulously researched, The Knowing is a seminal unravelling of the centuries-long oppression of Indigenous People that continues to reverberate in these communities today.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper Perennial, May 26, 2026
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 480 pages
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1443467520