Metis author Maria Campbell granted Cheryl and Henry Kloppenburg Award for Literary Excellence

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In 1973, when Maria Campbell’s landmark memoir Halfbreed was published, books written by Indigenous authors in Canada were rarities. Fifty years later, Indigenous writers flourish and the Métis author and playwright is the latest recipient of the Cheryl and Henry Kloppenburg Award for Literary Excellence.

The award, presented Wednesday by the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild at a luncheon in Saskatoon, honours a writer from the province who has written a substantial body of acclaimed literary work and has had a significant impact on writing in Saskatchewan.

Campbell, who’s in her eighties, has published a number of books since Halfbreed, a grim, sparely told racial tale released the same year pop star Cher had a No. 1 hit with the similarly titled Half-Breed. Campbell was born in rural Park Valley, Sask., the oldest of eight mixed-race children. After her mother died, Campbell quit school at age 12 to help her father, a Métis trapper, raise the family.

Upon its release, Halfbreed was hailed by The Globe and Mail’s William French as a work written with commendable frankness and integrity: “Her book is a significant and revealing document, especially for smug Canadians who feel superior to Americans.”

Campbell is an officer of the Order of Canada and, along with the late Lee Maracle, considered to be a matriarch of Indigenous literature. She was selected as the recipient of the Cheryl and Henry Kloppenburg Award by an anonymous jury of three prominent Canadian literary figures. It is stipulated that at least two of the jury members be from out of province.

The award carries a prize of $10,000 and a framed commemorative print of a painting by noted Saskatchewan artist Dorothy Knowles, who died on May 16, at age 96.

Among the 13 previous honorees are Guy Vanderhaeghe (the inaugural recipient, in 2010), poet Louise B. Halfe, novelists Sandra Birdsell and Yann Martel, and, last year, writer Candace Savage.

Also on Wednesday, Michelle Porter was named one of the five finalists for this year’s Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. The St. John’s-based Métis writer and academic was nominated for A Grandmother Begins the Story, a novel that spans five Métis generations.

Of Campbell’s legacy, the 47-year-old author told The Globe: “Every Métis writer owes an enormous debt to the bravery and the talent and the oral storytelling abilities and heritage that Maria Campbell brought to the attention of the entire country. Before her, Métis wasn’t a word that was very well understood. Halfbreed was saying, ‘Here we are and here’s what I’ve been through – it’s hard, it’s been a struggle, but I would not want to be anything but Métis.’”

Although Halfbreed is Campbell’s most well-known work – its film rights were recently sold – her other publications include People of the Buffalo, Little Badger and the Fire Spirit, Riel’s People, The Book of Jessica (co-authored with Linda Griffiths) and 1995′s Stories of The Road Allowance People, a collection of traditional Michif stories, which Porter uses in her creative writing classes at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

“The Road Allowance People is a tremendous book that shifts people’s understanding of literature toward a Métis oral tradition,” Porter said. “Both in the styles of the stories, the content of the stories and the history that is embedded in the stories.”

The namesakes of the award are lawyers Cheryl Kloppenburg and her late husband Henry Kloppenburg. The award’s three honorary patrons are the sitting lieutenant-governor of Saskatchewan, the mayor of Saskatoon and the president of the University of Saskatchewan.