BC and Yukon Book Prizes, Winner of the Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award, 2023
We all share a common humanity. No matter how long or difficult the path ahead, we are all one.
Reconciliation belongs to everyone. In this profound book, Chief Robert Joseph, globally recognized peacebuilder and Hereditary Chief of the Gwawaenuk People, traces his journey from his childhood surviving residential school to his present-day role as a leader who inspires individual hope, collective change, and global transformation.
Before we get to know where we are going, we need to know where we came from. Reconciliation represents a long way forward, but it is a pathway toward our higher humanity, our highest selves, and an understanding that everybody matters. In Namwayut, Chief Joseph teaches us to transform our relationships with ourselves and each other. As we learn about, honour, and respect the truth of the stories we tell, we can also discover how to dismantle the walls of discrimination, hatred, and racism in our society.
Chief Joseph is known as one of the leading voices on peacebuilding in our time, and his dedication to reconciliation has been recognized with multiple honorary degrees and awards. As one of the remaining first-language speakers of Kwak'wala, his wisdom is grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing while making space for something bigger and better for all of us.
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Chief Robert Joseph’s book is an invitation to our best and most authentic selves. In a way it is a love story. He takes us on a journey with him - from his early years, to his first day of residential school and horrors he experienced there, to the struggles and triumphs of his adulthood. As a reader, he brings you along with him. I cried, I laughed and I had so many “Ah ha” moments. He cradles his experience of abuse with powerful teachings that bring us back to ourselves and to love. His book, Namwayut, is an act of generosity, vulnerability and trust.
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