In fierce prose and poetic fragments, Leanne Betasamosake
Simpson’s Noopiming braids together humor, piercing detail,
and a deep, abiding commitment to Anishinaabe life to tell stories of
resistance, love, and joy.
Mashkawaji
(they/them) lies frozen in the ice, remembering the sharpness of
unmuted feeling from long ago, finding freedom and solace in isolated
suspension. They introduce the seven characters: Akiwenzii, the old
man who represents the narrator’s will; Ninaatig, the maple tree
who represents their lungs; Mindimooyenh, the old woman, their
conscience; Sabe, a gentle giant, their marrow; Adik, the caribou,
their nervous system; and Asin and Lucy, the humans who represent
their eyes, ears, and brain.
Simpson’s book As
We Have Always Done argued for the central place of storytelling in
imagining radical futures. Noopiming (Anishinaabemowin for “in
the bush”) enacts these ideas. The novel’s characters emerge from
deep within Abinhinaabeg thought to commune beyond an unnatural
urban-settler world littered with SpongeBob Band-Aids, Ziploc
baggies, and Fjällräven Kånken backpacks. A bold literary act of
decolonization and resistance, Noopiming offers a breaking
open of the self to a world alive with people, animals, ancestors,
and spirits—and the daily work of healing.
