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list price: $14.99
edition:eBook
category: Biography & Autobiography
published: Feb 2015
ISBN:9780889773691
publisher: University of Regina Press
imprint: U of R Press

The Education of Augie Merasty

A Residential School Memoir

by Joseph Auguste Merasty, with David Carpenter

tagged: native americans, native american, cultural heritage
Description

"Heartbreaking and important… brings into dramatic focus why we need reconciliation." - James Daschuk, author of Clearing the Plains This memoir offers a courageous and intimate chronicle of life in a residential school. Now a retired fisherman and trapper, the author was one of an estimated 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Metis children who were taken from their families and sent to government-funded, church-run schools, where they were subject to a policy of "aggressive assimilation." As Augie Merasty recounts, these schools did more than attempt o mold children in the ways of white society. They were taught to be ashamed of their native heritage and, as he experienced, often suffered physical and sexual abuse. But even as he looks back on this painful part of his childhood, Merasty's sense of humour and warm voice shine through.

About the Authors
Joseph Auguste Merasty attended St. Therese Residential School in Sturgeon Landing, SK, from 1935 to 1944. He lives in Prince Albert, SK.

David Carpenter began his writing vocation as a critic and translator in Winnipeg and Toronto. Inspired by a reading by the Moose Jaw Movement (Gary Hyland, Robert Currie, Lorna Crozier and others) in Saskatoon, he switched to writing his own work, which began to emerge in 1985. He is the author of fifteen books of fiction and nonfiction and one book of poetry. His literary awards and honours include the Saskatchewan Book Awards 2010 Book of the Year for A Hunter’s Confession, the Kloppenburg Prize for Literary Excellence (2015), the Code’s Burt Award (Toronto) for The Education of Augie Merasty (2016), and most recently, the High Plains Creative Nonfiction Award (Billings, Montana) for I Never Met a Rattlesnake I Didn’t Like (2023). As well, as a recognition for his writing, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Saskatchewan (2018). He lives and writes in Saskatoon.

Editorial Review

"Offers a glimpse into Merasty's life in residential school, exposing a terrible regime where evil went entirely unchecked. A quick read, it's nevertheless a historically significant one."

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