Trigger Warning: The mention of violence towards Indigenous women may be triggering for some readers. Please exercise personal care when reading.
I cannot give you the number of Indigenous women who are still missing because the data is ongoing, and many cases have been mishandled. The severity of how many women are currently missing and the number of Indigenous women who have been murdered is astonishing, as their cases continue to be pushed to the side. These women cannot reach out to us, but without their stories and without their advocates, their narrative will continue to be buried in our history. To give a voice to these women and the dilemmas they are going through, here are five authors you should check out who have written about missing and murdered Indigenous women.
Marcie Rendon
Author of the Cash Murder Mystery series and Where They Last Saw Her, Rendon is a member of the White Earth Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. Along with being an author, she is also a playwright, poet, and community arts activist.
Her award-winning novel, Where They Last Saw Her, has been earning praise as it navigates trauma and violence to bring a voice to women who cannot speak out. Her story follows Quinn as she investigates the case of a missing woman, but as more women keep disappearing, her past, present, and future all catch up to her at once. Rendon’s storytelling abilities will leave you feeling enraged, yet empowered, as she shows us what we can accomplish when we pay attention to the situation.
Vanessa Lillie
Author of Blood Sisters, Lillie is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Her novel launched a new series with the hashtag #MMIW2S being the heart of it.
Following a Cherokee archaeologist in an investigation of the disappearance of two women, Syd finds a skull near her childhood town at the same time her sister goes missing. Trying to protect the land and Indigenous past while also trying to escape her own, Syd finds her whole world crashing around her to reveal the truths of what she has gone through and what she will continue to fight for. Lillie plays with the reader’s emotions and provides stories for any reader to get tangled in the fight for freedom.
Jessica McDiarmid
McDiarmid, author of Highway of Tears, is a Canadian journalist who specializes in human rights and social justice issues. She grew up near the Highway of Tears which inspired her five-year investigation.
An isolated stretch of highway in northwestern British Columbia is known for its horror stories of the Indigenous women and girls who have gone missing or have been found murdered. This inspired McDiarmid’s story as she looks into the ongoing failures to provide justice for these women and their families. She investigates the effects of these tragedies and systemic racism’s involvement through interviews and first-hand accounts. Her novel highlights the realities that Indigenous women face as they continue to be functioning members of society.
Mona Gable
The author of Searching for Savanna is from California and has a master’s in education. She specializes in themes of gender, conservation, nature, and travel.
Based on the story of one woman, Searching for Savanna tells the stories of many with in-depth interviews and personal accounts. Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind was twenty-two years old when she vanished, and it was a week later when police arrested her upstairs neighbors, who had Savanna’s infant girl. This novel exposes the sexual and physical violence that Native American women have endured for centuries. Gable confronts history and racism to bring these injustices to light while giving insight into the current situation of the ongoing murders and kidnappings.
Angela Sterritt
The author of Unbroken is from the Wilp Wiik’aax of the Gitanmaax community within the Gitxsan Nation and Bell Island, Newfoundland. She is an investigative journalist, and TV, radio, and podcast host.
Her novel, Unbroken, is a part memoir and part investigation into her reporting on cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada. She showcases the effects of colonialism and racism that derive from the danger of violence towards Indigenous women. Sterritt demands accountability in this emotional read on the courage of Indigenous women and the injustices they face due to ignorance and neglect.
It is important that we have authors telling stories for the Indigenous women who have gone missing and have been murdered, as the issue is still ongoing. This target towards Indigenous women affects everyone, and it’s important that these authors have spoken out and continue to speak on the subject because we cannot fix the situation if we ignore it. Check out these authors and their work to become more familiar with this dilemma that has been going on for centuries.
For Indigenous literature on decolonization, click here.
Looking for more Native American novel recommendations? Check out our Insightful Native American Reads to Widen Your Horizon bookshelf on Bookshop.org.
