Tanya
Talaga
Tanya Talaga was a journalist at the Toronto Star for over twenty years. She was nominated five times for the Michener Award in public service journalism, has been on teams that won two National Newspaper Awards for Project of the Year, and was an Atkinson Fellow in Public Policy from 2017 to 2018. Talaga is author of Seven Fallen Feathers, which won the RBC Taylor Prize, the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, and a First Nations Communities READ award; it was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction and was named CBC’s Nonfiction Book of the Year. Her second book, All Our Relations, was also a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction and the British Academy’s Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding. Talaga leads Makwa Creative Inc., a production company focused on amplifying Indigenous voices through documentary films, TV, and podcasts. She lives in Toronto.
Writers & Books
Videos
Tanya Talaga's award-nominated All Our Relations
Tanya Talaga and her award-nominated investigation “Seven Fallen Feathers”
2017 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize winner Tanya Talaga on her book “Seven Fallen Feathers"
Award History
Jury Citation
“This story begins with an unmarked grave. But thanks to Tanya Talaga’s relentless journalism, the mystery of a missing loved one is elevated into an unforgettable account of Canada’s relationship with Indigenous people. With unflinching honesty and a forensic eye for detail, Talaga provides a searing new perspective on how this country’s most fundamental institutions are weaponized against Indigenous communities, a historical legacy that lives on today. This is political writing at its most personal — and its most compelling.” —2025 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize jury (Jennifer Ditchburn, Sara Mojtehedzadeh, and Christopher Waddell)2019 - Finalist
Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction
for All Our Relations: Finding the Path ForwardJury Citation
"All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward is an impeccably researched and unflinching documentation of how both colonial histories and ongoing genocidal practices have created the suicide crisis among Indigenous youth across the globe. Tanya Talaga expertly folds together interviews, storytelling, and statistics to bring us directly to the startling truth that Indigenous youth are fighting to find themselves through the multiple separations forced on them by settler states: separation of parents from children, separation of peoples from their land, and separation of tongues and hearts from their languages and traditions. All Our Relations is a call to action and a testament to the strength and tenacity of Indigenous people around the world." — 2019 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction Jury (Ivan Coyote, Trevor Herriot, and Manjushree Thapa)
2017 - Finalist
Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction
for Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern CityJury Citation
“In Seven Fallen Feathers, Tanya Talaga delves into the lives of seven Indigenous students who died while attending high school in Thunder Bay over the first 11 years of this century. With a narrative voice encompassing lyrical creation myth, razor-sharp reporting, and a searing critique of Canada’s ongoing colonial legacy, Talaga binds these tragedies –and the ambivalent response from police and government – into a compelling tapestry. This vivid, wrenching book shatters the air of abstraction that so often permeates news of the injustices Indigenous communities face every day. It is impossible to read Seven Fallen Feathers and not care about the lives lost, the families thrust into purgatory, while the rest of society looks away.” – 2017 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction Jury (Susan Harada, Arno Kopecky, and Siobhan Roberts)
2017 - Winner
Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing
for Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern CityJury Citation
“Tanya Talaga’s powerful book is a hard-hitting story of the realities of Canadian racism, complicity, and Indigenous suffering. It is also a testament to the resilience of the Anishinaabe families who endure the crushing impacts of historic and contemporary injustices. In spare prose and a direct voice, Talaga documents the tragedies of the lost lives of Indigenous youth while creating a compelling narrative that educates the reader on the sad history of Indigenous-White relations. This book is a crucial document of our times, and vital to the emergence of a true vision of justice in Canada.” – 2017 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing Jury (Taiaiake Alfred, Joseph Heath, and Kady O’Malley)