Hope is the backbone of our survival, and it's the core of our strength. It's how we survive and it's how we carry on after every state of emergency, after each suicide. Not only are we not allowed to, but it's impossible to write every culture and every community.' The significance of dreams So I'm always really cautious about people assuming that one Indigenous author can give you the narrative for all of us. 'I can only tell things from the perspective that I've been gifted with. Because even when I'm telling a story that involves the Cree narrative, or even a Métis community outside of my territory, I reach out to those people, and I talk to people. And we need to respect each others' stories. There are so many nations and languages and protocols and cultures within the Indigenous community we're not one lumped group.

'When we're talking about appropriation, it's not just about Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. We need to make sure it doesn't happen.'' Respecting others' stories I set it in the future so that those barriers of guilt weren't thrown up, and instead they can say, 'Well, this can't happen. I wanted them to see an ongoing Indigenous identity. Those are two very specific, isolated pieces of who we are, who we can be or who we have been. We're often seen as either this primitive society or this trauma narrative. 'I wanted to reach non-Indigenous readers at an age where the book could change their view of Indigenous people. To know that they belong to a larger community and they're loved.' Reaching a broader audience I wanted to break down some of the isolation that Indigenous youth might feel. I wanted them to see a narrative that actually is reminiscent of my own understanding of being an Indigenous person: That no matter what happens, you always belong to our land, we're always going to belong to each other and we'll seek each other out. 'I wanted Indigenous readers to feel strong and powerful. In her own words, Dimaline discusses the creative process behind The Marrow Thieves, which won the Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature - text and was chosen for Canada Reads 2018 by Jully Black. How Cherie Dimaline found hope in a dystopian future.Wanted for their bone marrow, which contains the lost ability to dream, a group of Indigenous people seek refuge in the old lands. In the dystopian world of Cherie Dimaline's The Marrow Thieves, climate change has ravaged the Earth and a continent-wide hunt and slaughter of Indigenous people is underway.

The marrow of thieves