The Knowing by Tanya Talaga

The Knowing

How the Oppression of Indigenous Peoples Continues to Echo Today

Tanya Talaga

Hanover Square Press · Print & ebook · July 15, 2025

***Winner of the Brass Knuckles Award for Best Nonfiction Crime Book!*** ***Shortlisted for the Toronto Book Awards!*** ***Shortlisted for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize!*** “The Knowing is everything we’ve come to expect from a Tanya Talaga book – meticulous research, impassioned advocacy, searing prose."—Duncan McCue, author of Decolonizing Journalism: A Guide to Reporting in Indigenous Communities From award-winning and bestselling Anishinaabe author Tanya Talaga comes a riveting exploration of the dark history of residential schools, “Indian hospitals” and asylums, for readers of Killers of the Flower Moon and The Rediscovery of America For generations, Indigenous People have known that their family members disappeared, many of them after being consigned to a coordinated system designed to destroy who the First Nations, Métis and Inuit people are.

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Who it’s for
Tanya Talaga brings personal history and meticulous research to the continuing oppression of Indigenous peoples.
Themes
Oppression of Indigenous peoples, Residential schools and institutions, Intergenerational historical trauma
Genres
Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island, Indigenous Peoples' History, Indigenous Lives

About this book

***Winner of the Brass Knuckles Award for Best Nonfiction Crime Book!*** ***Shortlisted for the Toronto Book Awards!*** ***Shortlisted for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize!

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*** “The Knowing is everything we’ve come to expect from a Tanya Talaga book – meticulous research, impassioned advocacy, searing prose."—Duncan McCue, author of Decolonizing Journalism: A Guide to Reporting in Indigenous Communities From award-winning and bestselling Anishinaabe author Tanya Talaga comes a riveting exploration of the dark history of residential schools, “Indian hospitals” and asylums, for readers of Killers of the Flower Moon and The Rediscovery of America For generations, Indigenous People have known that their family members disappeared, many of them after being consigned to 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 history unlike anything we have ever read before. Award-winning and bestselling Anishinaabe author Tanya Talaga retells the history of her 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.

History, Unhidden

Tanya Talaga brings personal history and meticulous research to the continuing oppression of Indigenous peoples.

Come here for

  • An Indigenous lens on Canadian history
  • A family story rooted in generations of history

Expect

  • Impassioned advocacy and searing prose
  • A close examination of residential schools, hospitals, and asylums

Where it sits

Indigenous Lives29%
Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island28%
Indigenous Peoples' History19%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Personal Memoirs
  • Indigenous Lives
  • Canadian History
  • Post-Confederation Canada
Show all 8 publisher categories
  • Native American History
  • Indigenous Peoples' History
  • Violence in Society
  • Indigenous Studies
Authors
Tanya Talaga
Publisher
Hanover Square Press
Published
July 15, 2025
Format
Print & ebook
Theme
Oppression of Indigenous peoples · Residential schools and institutions · Intergenerational historical trauma
Reading lane
Personal Memoirs