Eden Robinson
Writer-in-residence at Historic Joy Kogawa House in September 2024.
Eden Robinson is among the most renowned Canadian Indigenous authors of all time, her literature emulating her upbringing in Kitimat, British Columbia. Her well-known novels include the award-winning Monkey Beach and her critically acclaimed Trickster trilogy, including Son of a Trickster, Trickster Drift, and Return of the Trickster.
Eden Robinson’s literature presents a mixture of gothic West Coast Indigeneity in warm nostalgic fiction, enveloping the reader in rainy stories along the BC coast. Her work is deeply entertaining and interesting, surveying Indigenous identity through her characters and making that introspection accessible to Indigenous and non-Indigenous readers alike.
She was nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award for her first novel Monkey Beach, which has been permanently added to school curricula and adapted for CBC Television.
Her work is often the first Indigenous literature many Canadians encounter and is credited for drastically increasing the readerbase for all Indigenous authors.
Eden Robinson was our September writer-in-residence at Joy Kogawa House and was editing a novel-in-progress titled The Observers of the Setting Sun. While in residence, she participated in a public reading as part of the Word Vancouver Festival on Saturday, September 28, 12:30pm, at UBC Robson Square.