The trickster wink: storytelling and resistance in Tomson Highway's Kiss of the Fur Queen

Rubelise Cunha

doi:10.5007/2175-8026.2009n56p93

Authors

Rubelise Cunha UFRG

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-8026.2009n56p93

Abstract

This essay explores how Tomson Highway uses the narrative genre as a space to perform a speech act of resistance against colonialism through an approach that departs from contemporary discussions on genre theory and theories of storytelling. Highway´s novel Kiss of the Fur Queen reaffirms the process of adaptation that is intrinsic to Indigenous cultures and to the survival of the Trickster and promotes a healing experience through the recovery of Cree storytelling. John Frow's concept of genre as a performative structure that shapes the world in the very process of putting it into speech contributes to the focus on Indigenous storytelling rather than on Western literary categories.

Author Biography

Rubelise Cunha, UFRG

Rubelise da Cunha is Associate Professor of English and ViceCoordinator of the Center for Canadian Studies at the Federal University of Rio Grande (FURG), Brazil. Her recent publications include “´The Unending Appetite for Stories´: Genre Theory, Indigenous Theatre and Tomson Highway´s Rez Cycle” (Canadian Journal of Native Studies , v. 1&2, 2009) and “A Path to Freedom, A Key to Real Being: The Transformative Power of Poetry and Public Reading,” an interview with Lee Maracle ( Open Letter, n. 7, Fall 2008). She also coedited with Eloína Prati dos Santos the second volume of Perspectivas da Literatura Ameríndia no Brasil, Estados Unidos e Canadá (2007). She has recently developed research on genre theory and Indigenous theatre as a Visiting Scholar at Laurentian University (Sudbury, Canada, 2008-2009). Her research was financed by CAPES.