Review: Islands of Decolonial Love: Stories & Songs

Islands of Decolonial Love: Stories & Songs by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

First I read This Accident of Being Lost: Songs and Stories, pushed into my hands by someone at House of Anansi Press when I went to AWP in Tampa. Last year I read Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies.

This year, thanks to Erin and Dani's Book Club, now Indigenous Reading Circle (you can join in Patreon) - I got to read her earlier book of short stories and songs as they spend the first half of the year focusing on story collections. The stories deal with similar themes, all featuring Nishnaabeg characters close to home for Simpson (apologies if my spelling is incorrect for this form of the word, sometimes I see it starting with an A and don't know the rules. On her website, this spelling is used.)

My absolutely favorite story features two friends or lovers who have waited so long to meet in person and when they do find their suspicions correct - and it has to do with what we call "sasquatch" but they would not. (It harkens back to The Sentence which had a chapter called "Tender Sasquatch" as a joke self-pub title.)

Several reviews say the book comes with songs recorded to accompany the stories but I listed to the audio version in Hoopla and it did not have any performances included, and the one publisher site that claims to have them to listen to for free doesn't seem to. I'd welcome any guidance there as I'd love to hear them. I really enjoyed this book in audio! So much I listened to it back to back twice!

I'll attempt to discuss it a bit more on upcoming Episode 240 of the Reading Envy Podcast.

View all my reviews