Lee Maracle

Lee Maracle
Born	2 July 1950 Vancouver
Nationality	Canadian

Lee Maracle (born July 2, 1950) is a Canadian First Nations Coast Salish poet and author. She speaks out as a critic of the treatment of indigenous people by the Canadian people and she particularly highlights the issues relating to indigenous women.

Maracle was born in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1950 and grew up in the neighbouring city of North Vancouver and she was one of the first aboriginal children to be allowed to attend a normal state school. She dropped out of school and went to California where she did various jobs that included producing films and doing stand-up comedy. She returned to Canada and attended Simon Fraser University. She was one of the first Aboriginal people to be published in the early 1970s.

Maracle is one of the most prolific aboriginal authors in Canada and a recognized authority on issues pertaining to aboriginal people and aboriginal literature. She is an award-winning poet, novelist, performance storyteller, scriptwriter, actor and keeper/mythmaker among the Stó:lō people.

Maracle was one of the founders of the En’owkin International School of Writing in Penticton, British Columbia and the cultural director of the Centre for Indigenous Theatre in Toronto, Ontario.

Maracle has given hundreds of speeches on political, historical, and feminist sociological topics related to native people, and conducted dozens of workshops on personal and cultural reclamation. She has served as a consultant on First Nations’ self-government and has an extensive history in community development. She has been described as “a walking history book” and an international expert on Canadian First Nations culture and history. Her views (as broadcast 18 May 2014 on CBC Radio) are that the Canadian people (not the government, because Canada is an "illegitimate state") should accept responsibility for cultural genocide and the theft of the whole land from its aboriginal inhabitants.

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