• Source: Lee Maracle

Bobbi Lee Maracle (born Marguerite Aline Carter; July 2, 1950 – November 11, 2021) was an Indigenous Canadian writer and academic of the Stó꞉lō nation. Born in North Vancouver, British Columbia, she left formal education after grade 8 to travel across North America, attending Simon Fraser University on her return to Canada. Her first book, an autobiography called Bobbi Lee: Indian Rebel, was published in 1975. She wrote fiction, non-fiction, and criticism and held various academic positions. Maracle's work focused on the lives of Indigenous people, particularly women, in contemporary North America. As an influential writer and speaker, Maracle fought for those oppressed by sexism, racism, and capitalist exploitation.




Early life and education


The granddaughter of Tsleil-Waututh Chief Dan George, Marguerite Aline Carter was born on July 2, 1950, in North Vancouver, British Columbia. "Lee" was a nickname for "Aline". She grew up in North Vancouver, raised mainly by her mother, Jean (Croutze) Carter.
Maracle dropped out of school after grade 8 and went from California, where she did various jobs that included producing films and doing stand-up comedy, to Toronto. After returning to Canada, she attended Simon Fraser University. In the 1970s, she became involved with the Red Power movement in Vancouver.




Writing


Maracle's writing explores the experience of Indigenous women, critiquing patriarchy and white supremacy. Her first book was an autobiography: Bobbi Lee: Indian Rebel, published in 1975. The book began as an assignment in a course about writing life histories. Critic Harmut Lutz describes Indian Rebel as "a celebration of Native survival", comparing it to the works of Maria Campbell and Howard Adams. Indian Rebel was "one of the first Indigenous works published in Canada".
I Am Woman (1988) applies feminist theory to the situation of Indigenous women, describing women's sexual victimization at the hands of Indigenous and white men alike while reflecting on her own struggle for liberation. Sojourner's Truth (1990), a collection of short stories, describes the everyday lives of Indigenous people dealing with a "Eurocentric culture". Her poetry book, Hope Matters, was written in conjunction with her daughters Columpa Bobb and Tania Carter, and was published in 2019.
Sundogs, 1992, Maracle's first novel, touches on remembering Native heritage and recollecting cultural roots.
Ravensong, (1993), speaks of blending oral tradition and holistic oneness with living while tackling the barriers of racism, sexism, and class.




Academic positions


Maracle was one of the founders of the En'owkin International School of Writing in Penticton, British Columbia. She was the cultural director of the Centre for Indigenous Theatre in Toronto, Ontario, from 1998 to 2000.
Maracle taught at the University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, and Southern Oregon University, and was a professor of Canadian culture at Western Washington University. She lived in Toronto, teaching at the University of Toronto First Nations House. She was the writer-in-residence at the University of Guelph.




Personal life


Maracle belonged to the Stó꞉lō nation and had Salish and Cree ancestry. She has been described as Métis. She was married to Raymond Bobb and later to Aiyyana Maracle. She and Raymond had two daughters, including Columpa Bobb, and one son, actor Sid Bobb.
She died on November 11, 2021, at Surrey Memorial Hospital in Surrey, British Columbia.




Awards and honours


Maracle was named an officer of the Order of Canada in 2018. In 2017, Maracle was presented with the Bonham Centre Award from the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, University of Toronto, for her contributions to the advancement and education of issues around sexual identification. She delivered the 2021 Margaret Laurence Lecture on "A Writing Life". In 2020, she was named finalist for the Neustadt International Prize for "Celia's Song".




Publications






= Fiction

=
Sojourner's Truth and Other Stories (1990)
Sundogs – 1992
Ravensong – (Press Gang Publishers, 1993)
Daughters Are Forever (2002)
Will's Garden (2002)
First Wives Club: Coast Salish Style (Theytus Books Publishing, 2010)
Celia's Song. Cormorant Books. 2014. ISBN 978-1-77086-416-0.




= Non-fiction

=
Bobbi Lee: Indian Rebel (1975, reissued 1990)
I Am Woman: A Native Perspective on Sociology and Feminism (1988; Press Gang Publishers, 1996)
Oratory: Coming to Theory (1990)
Memory Serves: Oratories (2015) ISBN 9781926455440
My Conversations with Canadians (2017)




= Poetry

=
Bent Box (2000)
Talking to the Diaspora (2015) ISBN 9781894037655
Hope Matters. Book*hug. 2019. ISBN 9781771664974. (with Columpa Bobb and Tania Carter)




= Collaborations

=
My Home as I Remember (2000)
We Get Our Living Like Milk from the Land (1993)
Telling It: Women and Language Across Cultures (with Betsy Warland, Sky Lee and Daphne Marlatt) (Press Gang Publishers, 1990)




See also


List of University of Waterloo people




Citations






General sources


Coleman, Daniel (2012). "Epistemological Crosstalk: Between Melancholia and Spiritual Cosmology in David Chariandy's Soucouyant and Lee Maracle's Daughters Are Forever". In Brydon, Diana; Dvorak, Marta (eds.). Crosstalk: Canadian and Global Imaginaries in Dialogue. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. pp. 53–72. ISBN 978-1-55458-309-6. OCLC 759669241.




Further reading


Berry Brill de Ramirez, Susan (1999). Contemporary American Indian literatures & the oral tradition. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. ISBN 9780816519576.
Horne, Dee (1999). Contemporary American Indian writing: unsettling literature. New York: Peter Lang. ISBN 9780820442983.
Leggatt, Judith (December 2000). "Raven's Plague: pollution and disease in Lee Maracle's "Ravensong"". Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal. 33 (4). University of Manitoba: 163–178. JSTOR 44029714.
Lew, Janey (2017). "A politics of meeting: reading intersectional indigenous feminist praxis in Lee Maracle's Sojourners and Sundogs". Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. 38 (1). University of Nebraska Press: 225–259. doi:10.5250/fronjwomestud.38.1.0225. JSTOR 10.5250/fronjwomestud.38.1.0225. S2CID 151914657.
MacFarlane, Karen E. (2002). "Storying the borderlands: liminal spaces and narrative strategies in Lee Maracle's Ravensong". In Eigenbrod, Renate; Episkenew, Jo-Ann (eds.). Creating community: a roundtable on Canadian aboriginal literature. Penticton, British Columbia / Brandon, Manitoba: Theytus Books Bearpaw Pub. pp. 109–123. ISBN 9781894778084.




External Links



The Canadian Encyclopedia page

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Literary Review of Canada
• Lee Maracle
• Maracle
• Chief Dan George
• Columpa Bobb
• Sky Lee
• Joan Phillip
• Sid Bobb
• Ravensong
• Centre for Indigenous Theatre
• False Creek