Joseph Dandurand – författare

“Deep in the thickest part of a cedar forest there lived a young Sasquatch. He was over nine feet tall and his feet were about size twenty. He had long brown hair that covered all of his body. His hands were so big and his arms so long he could wrap them around the biggest of the cedar trees. He had been born here many years ago and he did not know his parents, as they had been scared away by a great fire. He was left on his own and he had survived by eating berries and he had grown into the Sasquatch he now was...”

So begins this charming story for children by Kwantlen storyteller Joseph Dandurand. The Sasquatch, spirit of the great cedar forest, eludes human hunters, falls in love, fathers a lovely daughter and saves his little family from a forest fire by dousing the flames with water stored in baskets carefully woven by his mate.

The story is told with grace and simplicity by a master storyteller in the great tradition of the Kwantlen people. Accompanied by whimsical illustrations from Kwakwaka’wakw artist Simon Daniel James, The Sasquatch, the Fire and the Cedar Baskets follows a similar style to popular Nightwood titles such as Salmon Boy, Mayuk the Grizzly Bear and How the Robin Got Its Red Breast.

the tales are of loss and forgivenessand they fill the roomThe Punishment is the latest addition to the oeuvre of prolific Kwantlen writer Joseph Dandurand, whose stunning previous collection, The East Side of It All, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize.In The Punishment, Joseph Dandurand''s now-familiar storyteller''s voice wrangles trauma, grief, forgiveness and love. His poems illustrate the poet''s solitary existence. With scenes of residential school, the psych ward, the streets and the river, Dandurand reveals an arduous journey: one poet''s need to both understand his life and find ways to escape it. Through poetry, he shares with us all his lovers. He shares the streets. He shares what he sees: the great eagles and small birds; his culture and teachings; the East Side; self-pity; the deception of love; the deception of hate; sasquatches; spirits; and his people, the Kwantlen.At root, The Punishment is about survival. Dandurand''s poems will show you disease. They''ll show you cedar. They''ll show you music. They''ll show you shadows. They''ll show you forgiveness, and they''ll show you punishment.