SPLIT TOOTH | Tanya Tagaq

25 Jan

TURTLE ISLAND/CANADA
2019
Penguin Random House / Penguin Canada

“Global warming will release the deeper smells and coax stories out of the permafrost. Who knows what memories lie deep in the ice? Who knows what curses? Earth’s whispers released back into the atmosphere can only wreak havoc.”

— Tanya Tagaq, Split Tooth 2019

The Arctic landscape takes form in this coming-of-age story of a young Inuk girl in the 1970s. In this beautifully written novel, Canadian Inuit artist, throat singer, and author Tanya Tagaq reflects on land and nature, relationships and relationality, myth and reality.

Further reading, listening, viewing

Tanya Tagaq, personal website

Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq, Penguin Random House, 2019

Animism by Tanya Tagaq (album)

‘Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq review – coming of age in the High Arctic’, Erica Wagner, The Guardian (2023)