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Métis storyteller and Montana poet laureate Chris La Tray returns to Elk River Books to discuss his new memoir, Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home, on Thursday, Oct. 10.Combining diligent research and compelling conversations with authors, activists, elders, and historians, Becoming Little Shell is a journey into the La Tray family’s past, discovering along the way a larger story of the complicated history of Indigenous communities—as well as the devastating effects of colonialism that continue to ripple through surviving generations. As La Tray comes to embrace his full identity, he eventually seeks enrollment with the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians, joining their 158-year-long struggle for federal recognition.
The publisher writes, “Both personal and historical, Becoming Little Shell is a testament to the power of storytelling, to family and legacy, and to finding home. Infused with candor, heart, wisdom, and an abiding love for a place and a people, Chris La Tray’s remarkable journey is both revelatory and redemptive.”
“I am in awe of Chris La Tray’s storytelling,” writes Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass. “Becoming Little Shell creates a multilayered narrative from threads of personal, family, community, tribal, and national histories.”
La Tray is a descendent of the Pembina Band of the mighty Red River of the North and an enrolled member of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians. He is the author of One-Sentence Journal: Short Poems and Essays from the World at Large, which won the 2018 Montana Book Award and a 2019 High Plains Book Award, as well as Descended from a Travel-Worn Satchel, a collection of haiku and haibun poetry. He writes the weekly newsletter “An Irritable Métis” and lives near Frenchtown, Montana.
Elk River Books is located at 122 S. 2nd St. in downtown Livingston. The free event begins at 7 p.m., and a book signing and reception will follow.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
122 S. 2nd St (PO Box 2212), Livingston, MT, United States, Montana 59047
