Firekeeper

Nyla has an affinity to fire. A neglected teen in a small northern town--trying to escape a mother battling her own terrors--she is kicked out and struggles through life on the streets. Desperate for love, Nyla accidentally sets fire to her ex’s building and is then incarcerated for arson. Through community-led diversion, Nyla finds herself on a reserve as their firekeeper. But when climate change-induced wildfires threaten her new home, she knows intimately how to fight back.

The fourth book from acclaimed writer Katlıà brings a Northern Indigenous perspective to the destructive effects of ongoing colonialism. Displaying Katlıà’s enthralling storytelling style, Firekeeper is a coming-of-age tale that addresses intergenerational trauma by reclaiming culture, belonging and identity.

Join Nyla on her healing journey through the fire to sacred waters.

Katlıà is a northern Dene novelist specializing in intellectual property law with a focus on mitigating cultural appropriation and creating empowering Indigenous storytelling narratives. Katlįà’s northern homeland and matrilineal lineage inform her storytelling. She is the author of novels This House Is Not a Home and Land-Water-Sky / Ndè-Tı-Yat’a and a memoir, Northern Wildflower, written as Catherine Lafferty. Katlįà is a member of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation from Somba K’e (Yellowknife), Northwest Territories. She currently splits her time between her northern homeland and the occupied and unceded lands of the Coast Salish peoples in lək̓ʷəŋən territory, where she graduated from the University of Victoria with the double law degree Juris Indigenarum Doctor and Juris Doctor. Katlįà is the co-chair of the National Indigenous Housing Network and the Women’s National Housing and Homelessness Network and is working on a constitutional charter rights court challenge for Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people for right to adequate housing.