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As Long as the Rivers Flow by James Bartleman
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As Long as the Rivers Flow

By James Bartleman

By James Bartleman

By James Bartleman

By James Bartleman

Best Seller
Paperback $17.95

Nov 01, 2011 | ISBN 9780307398758

Ebook $13.99

Feb 15, 2011 | ISBN 9780307398765

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    As Long as the Rivers Flow by James Bartleman
    Paperback $17.95
    Nov 01, 2011 | ISBN 9780307398758

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    • Paperback $17.95

      Nov 01, 2011 | ISBN 9780307398758

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      Feb 15, 2011 | ISBN 9780307398765

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    About As Long as the Rivers Flow

    From the accomplished memoirist and former Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario comes a first novel of incredible heart and spirit for every Canadian.

    The novel follows one girl, Martha, from the Cat Lake First Nation in Northern Ontario who is “stolen” from her family at the age of six and flown far away to residential school. She doesn’t speak English but is punished for speaking her native language; most terrifying and bewildering, she is also “fed” to the school’s attendant priest with an attraction to little girls.

    Ten long years later, Martha finds her way home again, barely able to speak her native tongue. The memories of abuse at the residential school are so strong that she tries to drown her feelings in drink, and when she gives birth to her beloved son, Spider, he is taken away by Children’s Aid to Toronto. In time, she has a baby girl, Raven, whom she decides to leave in the care of her mother while she braves the bewildering strangeness of the big city to find her son and bring him home.

    About As Long as the Rivers Flow

    From the accomplished memoirist and former Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario comes a first novel of incredible heart and spirit for every Canadian.

    The novel follows one girl, Martha, from the Cat Lake First Nation in Northern Ontario who is “stolen” from her family at the age of six and flown far away to residential school. She doesn’t speak English but is punished for speaking her native language; most terrifying and bewildering, she is also “fed” to the school’s attendant priest with an attraction to little girls.

    Ten long years later, Martha finds her way home again, barely able to speak her native tongue. The memories of abuse at the residential school are so strong that she tries to drown her feelings in drink, and when she gives birth to her beloved son, Spider, he is taken away by Children’s Aid to Toronto. In time, she has a baby girl, Raven, whom she decides to leave in the care of her mother while she braves the bewildering strangeness of the big city to find her son and bring him home.

    Read An Excerpt

    Read An Excerpt

    About James Bartleman

    JAMES BARTLEMAN rose from humble circumstances in Port Carling, Ontario, to become Foreign Policy Advisor to the right PM Chrétien in 1994. After a distinguished career of more than thirty-five years in the Canadian foreign service, in 2002 he became the first… More about James Bartleman

    About James Bartleman

    JAMES BARTLEMAN rose from humble circumstances in Port Carling, Ontario, to become Foreign Policy Advisor to the right PM Chrétien in 1994. After a distinguished career of more than thirty-five years in the Canadian foreign service, in 2002 he became the first… More about James Bartleman

    Product Details

    Category: Literary Fiction

    Paperback | $17.95
    Published by Vintage Canada
    Nov 01, 2011 | 272 Pages | 5-3/16 x 8 | ISBN 9780307398758

    Category: Literary Fiction

    Ebook | $13.99
    Published by Knopf Canada
    Feb 15, 2011 | 272 Pages | ISBN 9780307398765

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    Praise

    FINALIST 2013 – Burt Award for First Nations, Métis and Inuit Literature

    “As Long as the Rivers Flow casts an unflinching eye on the self-destruction that often befalls residential school survivors and their children. . . . Impressive.”
    — Quill & Quire

    “An extremely poignant novel that exposes the short-term and long-term damage of the residential school system. James Bartleman has skillfully illustrated an unpleasant but inescapable episode in Canadian and Native history and deserves recognition for shedding necessary light into the darkness.”
     — Drew Hayden Taylor, author of Motorcycles and Sweetgrass
     
     “James Bartleman combines the expertise of well-informed non-fiction with the compelling elements of fiction to tell a devastating, inspiring story. Only someone extremely well-informed and compassionate could have written it. My first teaching assignments thirty years ago were in Oji-Cree communities around James Bay. If only I’d had this novel to read then. It let me walk a mile in Martha’s moccasins, and her tracks remain on my heart. If you’re only going to read one book to glimpse what it’s been like to be Aboriginal in this country, this novel should be the one.”
     — Anne Laurel Carter, author of The Shepherd’s Granddaughter and Last Chance Bay

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