Split Tooth

Split Tooth is the debut novel by Canadian musician Tanya Tagaq, published in 2018. Based in part on her own personal journals, the book tells the story of a young Inuk woman growing up in the Canadian Arctic in the 1970s.

Split Tooth
First edition cover
AuthorTanya Tagaq
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish
GenreMagic realism
PublisherViking Press
Publication date
September 25, 2018
Media typePrint (Hardcover), audiobook
ISBN9780143198055
OCLC1076787054

The book has been described as a blend of fiction, memoir, poetry and Inuit folklore. Characterized by its publisher as magic realism, it has also been characterized as an example of Daniel Heath Justice's critical concept of "wonderworks", or literature by Indigenous writers that defies conventional Western notions of literary genre.

The book won the Indigenous Voices Award for English Prose in 2019. It was named as a longlisted nominee for the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2019 Amazon.ca First Novel Award.

Background

Split Tooth was written by Tanya Tagaq based on journal entries, poems and short stories that she had written over the previous 20 years.[1] Tagaq was raised in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, and attended high school in Yellowknife before finding success in Toronto performing Inuit throat singing. At 43 years old in 2018 when Split Tooth, Tagaq's first and only book was published, she had already released four studio albums and appointed to be a Member of the Order of Canada.[2]

Summary

Through a series of alternating short prose, poems and illustrations, the Inuk narrator recollects aspects of growing up in a small Nunavut town in the 1970s. The unnamed adolescent girl protagonist lives in the tundra landscape, spends time with friends, copes with sexual abuse, witnesses domestic violence, experiences Inuit culture and religion, and gives birth.

Style and themes

The book is divided by unnumbered chapters with poems and illustrations in between pieces of short prose. The prose is written with a poetic quality and moves the narratives along. The poems include one written in Inuinnaqtun, a dialect of an Inuit language. The illustrations are all full-page, black-and-white drawings by Chicanx artist Jaime Hernandez. The book integrates some of the author's real life background and experiences, fiction and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit. For example, the story of Sedna is related as a counterpoint to the 1970s Panarctic Oils seismic testing.[3] The publisher categorizes the genre as magical realism, as the author noted Gabriel García Márquez as being an influence, though it also fits within the genre of Bildungsroman.[4] The book has been cited as an example of the genre "wonderwork" as described by literary academic Daniel Heath Justice, being Indigenous literature that defies conventional Western notions of literary genre.[5]

Among the themes is that of interconnectedness: "life and death, tenderness and violence, everyday existence and the spectacular spirituality inherent in nature are one and the same".[3] The setting cycles through alternating the "24-hour day and perpetual night"[3] of the high arctic. Like her last album Retribution the theme of rape is also prevalent throughout the work: "the rape of women, of children, of traditional lands, the shame brought on Indigenous people by these assaults, by the residential school system...lost languages, grinding poverty, generational trauma."[1]

Publication and reception

Split Tooth was published by Penguin Books imprint Viking Press and released on September 25, 2018. An excerpt was published in The Walrus and it charted for several weeks on The Globe and Mail's Canadian fiction bestseller list.[6][7] It was awarded an Indigenous Voices Award,[8] longlisted for the 2018 Giller Prize,[9] the 2019 Sunburst Award[10] and nominated for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award[11] while the author was shortlisted for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize and the book designer Jennifer Griffiths was given to the Alcuin Society Award for Excellence in Book Design in Canada.[12] At the same time, an audiobook version voiced by Tagaq was released and nominated for an Audie Award[13]| and a version translated into French by Sophie Voillot was published by Alto, titled Croc Fendu, and longlisted for the Prix des libraires du Québec.[14]

The review in the Quill & Quire stated "Like a smirking teenager, Split Tooth blithely gives typical literary expectations the finger, daring us to see and experience narrative as chaotic, emotional, and deeply instinctive. And it succeeds."[3] The review in the Winnipeg Free Press concluded that the book's "triumph" is describing a real life that "overflows with the supernatural, the unexplained, the unknown".[15] In La Presse, the reviewer wrote "Tanya, she likes the right words, the precise, the poetic." Another reviewer stated "This is definitely a work to admire for how the author has told the story and what it has to offer, rather than one to enjoy." Quill & Quire editor, Sue Carter, writing in the Toronto Star, noted that Split Tooth, along with Cherie Dimaline's The Marrow Thieves also released in 2018, shows that there is now "a broad demand for Indigenous-authored books."[2]

References
  1. Gillis, Carla (September 12, 2018). "Tanya Tagaq steps out onto an unfamiliar stage". Now. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
  2. Carter, Sue (September 21, 2018). "Tanya Tagaq's first book 'breathes new life into old memories'". Toronto Star. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
  3. Baker, Carleigh (September 2018). "Split Tooth, by Tanya Tagaq". Quill & Quire. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
  4. Mistry, Anupa (September 29, 2018). "'This book was written for my own heart': Polaris Prize-winning musician Tanya Tagaq reveals the discomfort and struggle she endured while giving birth to her mythobiography". The Globe and Mail. p. 20.
  5. "Fracturing to Survive in Tanya Tagaq's 'Split Tooth'". PopMatters. January 17, 2019. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
  6. "Bestsellers". The Globe and Mail. October 4, 2018. p. A17.
  7. "Bestsellers". The Globe and Mail. October 18, 2018. p. A15.
  8. "Tanya Tagaq and seven other writers take home prizes at Indigenous Voices Awards". CityNews. June 5, 2019. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
  9. van Koeverden, Jane (September 17, 2018). "Esi Edugyan, Patrick deWitt, Tanya Tagaq among 12 authors longlisted for 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize". CBC Books. Retrieved June 26, 2019.
  10. van Koeverden, Jane (June 12, 2019). "Eden Robinson, Tanya Tagaq longlisted for 2019 Sunburst Awards for Canadian fantasy writing". CBC. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
  11. Dundas, Deborah (April 26, 2019). "Tanya Tagaq, Ian Williams among finalists for $60,000 Amazon Canada First Novel Award". Toronto Star. Retrieved June 26, 2019.
  12. "Alcuin Society Book Design Awards: 2018 Award Winners Announced". Alcuin Society. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
  13. Sue, Carter (February 7, 2019). "Tanya Tagaq's Split Tooth audiobook up for Audie Award". Quill & Quire. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
  14. Wysocka, Natalia (October 12, 2019). "Croc fendu de Tanya Tagaq : harnacher la peur". La Presse. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
  15. Williams, Matt (September 29, 2018). "From stage to page: In delivering her debut novel, Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq faces fear head-on". Winnipeg Free Press. Winnipeg, Manitoba. p. D2.
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