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- By Native News Online Staff
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Grand Valley State University will host Angeline Boulley (Sault Ste. Marie of Chippewa Indians), a New York Times best-selling author of Firekeeper’s Daughter, on Tuesday, February 22, 2022. Boulley will read from her best-seller and answer questions from the audience.
The in-person event will be at Grand Valley State University’s DeVos Center for Interprofessional Health, 333 Michigan Street, NE, in downtown Grand Rapids, Mich. from 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. Masks are required inside of the university.
The event will be live streamed on Native News Online beginning at 6:00 p.m. – EST. The program will not be recorded.
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Firekeeper’s Daughter is the first book by Boulley, who previously worked for the U.S. Dept. of Education in Washington, D.C. before moving back to Michigan to be closer to her aging parents. Released in March 2021, it made the New York Times best-seller list during the first week of April. The book spent 20 weeks on the New Times best-seller list.
“Angeline Boulley gives our youth inspiration to be like her. Her book authenticates our experiences and speaks to our lives' experiences that validate our existence. Our readers are able to see themselves in the story, and that is so important for us, to be visible, after years of being erased,” Lin Bardwell (Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians), program coordinator, Native American Initiatives at Grand Valley State University said.
“Firekeeper’s Daughter is an electrifying thriller layered with a rich exploration of the modern Native experience, a reckoning of current and historical injustices, and a powerful celebration of community,” reads the book’s jacket.
TIME describes the book as “part thriller, part romance and part examination of Indigenous identity.”
“Boulley’s forceful and thought-provoking debut questions many of the tropes around policing that often appear in the crime genre,” TIME writes.
“I think the public was primed and ready for a thriller that provides a glimpse into Indigenous identity,” Boulley said to Native News Online in August 2021.
Firekeeper’s Daughter has been optioned by the Obamas’ Higher Ground to be adapted into a Netflix series.
This event is made possible by Grand Valley State University – Office of Multicultural Affairs, Grand Valley State University – Kutsche Office of Local History, Grand Valley State University – Women Gender and Sexuality Studies, Grand Valley State University – Inclusion and Equity Division, Grand Rapids Public Schools, and Native News Online.
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