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For Joshua by Richard Wagamese
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For Joshua

An Ojibway Father Teaches His Son

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Narrator Craig Lauzon

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Length 5 hours 44 minutes
Language English
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The heartfelt memoir from one of Canada's most beloved writers.

Staring the modern world in the eye, Richard Wagamese confronts its snares and perils. He sees people coveting without knowing why, looking for roots without understanding what constitutes home, searching for acceptance without extending reciprocal respect, and longing for love without knowing how to offer it.
He sees this because he lived it.
For Joshua Wagamese's love letter to his estranged son. Ojibway tradition calls for fathers to walk their children through the world and teach them their place in it. To teach them they belong. In this intimate memoir, Wagamese describes his own tumultuous journey--though childhood trauma, racism, and substance abuse--and his fight to emerge stronger. His road to self-knowledge has been long and treacherous, but this has furnished him, if not with a complete set of answers, then at least with a profound understanding of the questions. Hoping to impart his newfound understanding of the world onto his beloved son, Wagamese shares his search for happiness and the choices he has made to open himself up to it.

RICHARD WAGAMESE, an Ojibway from the Wabaseemoong First Nation in northwestern Ontario, was one of Canada's foremost writers. His acclaimed, bestselling novels included Keeper 'n MeIndian Horse, which was a Canada Reads finalist, winner of the inaugural Burt Award for First Nations, Métis and Inuit Literature, and made into a feature film; and Medicine Walk. He was also the author of acclaimed memoirs, including For JoshuaOne Native Life; and One Story, One Song, which won the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature; as well as a collection of personal reflections, Embers, which received the Bill Duthie Booksellers' Choice Award. He won numerous awards and recognition for his writing, including the National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Media and Communications, the Molson Prize for the Arts, the Canada Reads People's Choice Award, and the Writers' Trust of Canada's Matt Cohen Award. Wagamese died at the age of 61, on March 10, 2017, in Kamloops, B.C. Starlight is his final work of fiction.

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Reviews

“[For Joshua] is revealing, open, and tragic. It is also a remarkably touching and well-written journey.” -- The Globe and Mail

“I hope that when Joshua does eventually read this book, he has the maturity to appreciate his father’s act of bravery, and to learn from it. For the rest of us, For Joshua is a fascinating and moving portrayal of one man’s search for his heritage, his true place in the world, and in the process, his discovery of himself.” -- Hamilton Spectator

“This well-written and perceptive book shows that it is possible for aboriginal people -- for any person -- to get back from there to here.” -- Quill & Quire

"Graceful and reverberating... A harrowing life story but also a ceremony, a gathering of traditional knowledge, and a love letter across the generations, For Joshua is a book we need, a book we can all treasure. Every page is infused with such tenderness and emotional intensity that I was shocked again and again with the thought: this is the true strength and reach and burden of love." -- Warren Cariou, author of Lake of the Prairies Expand reviews
Celebrate indie bookstores with our limited-time sale! Shop the sale