The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America
In The Inconvenient Indian, Thomas King offers a deeply knowing, darkly funny, and unabashedly opinionated account of Indian-White relations in North America from first contact to the present. Ranging across the United States and Canada, King moves between history, popular culture and his own experience to challenge received narratives about Indigenous peoples — from the "Dead Indian" of film and politics to the real history of resistance, treaties, and land. Equal parts a history and a subversion of one, the book won the RBC Taylor Prize and the British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction in 2014.
It's both, by design. Thomas King calls it "a curious account" — a blend of narrative history, cultural criticism and his own personal experience, tracing Indian-White relations across the United States and Canada from first contact to the present rather than following a single conventional genre.
The Inconvenient Indian won the 2014 RBC Taylor Prize and the 2014 British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction.