PEYAKOW

The follow-up to the Governor General's Award-winning memoir Mamaskatch, a powerful story of resilience.

Mamaskatch, Darrel J. McLeod's 2018 memoir of growing up Cree in Northern Alberta, was a publishing sensation - winning the Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction, shortlisted for many other major prizes and translated into French and German editions. In PEYAKOW, McLeod continues the poignant story of his impoverished youth, beset by constant fears of being dragged down by the self-destruction and deaths of those closest to him as he battles the bullying of white classmates, copes with the trauma of physical and sexual abuse, and endures painful separation from his family and culture. Brutally frank but buoyed throughout by McLeod's unquenchable spirit, PEYAKOW - a title borrowed from the Cree word for "one who walks alone" - is an inspiring account of triumph against unimaginable odds.

Darrel J. McLeod is Cree from treaty eight territory in Northern Alberta. Before deciding to pursue writing in his retirement, he was a chief negotiator of land claims for the federal government and executive director of education and international affairs with the Assembly of First Nations. He holds degrees in French Literature and Education from the University of British Columbia. He lives in Sooke, British Columbia.