The company publishing the award-winning Cree writer and teacher Darrel J. McLeod's books says he died at age 67. McLeod receives the Governor General's Literary Award for Non-fiction for Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age, from then-Governor General Julie Payette during a ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
Award-winning Cree writer and teacher Darrel J. McLeod has died at the age of 67.
Corina Eberle, Mcleod’s publicist at Douglas & McIntyre, says he died Thursday, adding his death was “sudden and unexpected.”
McLeod’s debut memoir “Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age” won the Governor General’s Literary Award for non-fiction in 2018, when the jury praised his writing as “lyrical and gritty, raw and vulnerable.”
The Sooke, B.C.-based writer spent the first part of his career in education, working as a teacher and school principal.
He went on to serve as the executive director of education and international affairs at the Assembly of First Nations, and chief negotiator of land claims for the federal government.
His writing was widely praised, and his second book, “Peyakow: Reclaiming Cree Dignity, A Memoir,” was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction in 2021.
His first novel, “A Season in Chezgh’un,” was published last year.
“I’ve worked with a lot of authors, he is possibly the most compassionate, resilient, humane, curious both intellectually and personally… I’ve had the pleasure to both work with as an author and to meet as a human,” Eberle said in a phone interview.
“Not All authors become friends by any stretch of the imagination, but it was impossible not to become a friend with Darrel.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 31, 2024.
