Tommy Orange, on the trauma of the Indigenous population of America (based on his new novel Wandering Stars).

In his new novel, Wandering Stars, we once again follow multiple characters, from multiple perspectives and in multiple eras. From 19th-century Colorado, where Indigenous youths were forcefully ‘Americanized’ in horrifying ways, to contemporary Oakland, California, where their descendants still wrestle with their families’ psychic wounds. The injustice meted out to the community, their sorrows, and the will to break out of the cycle of trauma, all leap from the pages. “It’s not too early to say that Orange is building a body of literature that reshapes the Native American story in the United States”, said The Washington Post about his first novel. “Book by book, he’s correcting the dearth of Indian stories even while depicting the tragic cost of that silence.” We can’t wait for Tommy Orange to break that silence and tell us all about Wandering Stars.

Moderator: Aldith Hunkar.