“Inhale hard love suck in the smell and reward reap eat chew swallow devour all the goodness and love that is given to you,” she writes with lyrical strength and tenderness about a world that is often harsh and disappointing. Tagaq’s poetry is a major aspect of what sets Split Tooth apart from other works, both semi-biographical and ethnographic. Instead, Tagaq has broken a new trail for all future Inuit writers to tread upon, describing the lived world of an Inuk child with writing that is breathtaking and singular. Unlike similar texts, her debut novel Split Tooth (2018) does not concern itself with the recanting of myths or with the adjustment to modern life, whether living on or off the tundra. Award-winning musician Tanya Tagaq has written an innovative part autobiographical, part fictional novel that intermingles prose, poetry and drawings portraying present-day Inuit reality.
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