“In a new memoir, Winnipeg environmental activist Clayton Thomas-Muller details what life was like growing up as an Indigenous youth in Winnipeg’s inner city.” Darrell Stranger, September 9, 2021, ICT
Novel- Life in the City of Dirty Water by Clayton Thomas-Muller. (Screen grab, APTN National News)
Excerpt: “Life in the City of Dirty Water ties together his stories of survival with his stories of defending lands against various pipelines.
‘There’s a lot there you know but it’s a story of my life. But you know it’s a shared experience I think that many Native people you know have gone through,’ Thomas-Muller said.
He faced family violence, poverty, racism and eventually ended up in juvenile detention.
This memoir details how he escaped from those troubles once he embraced his culture’s rituals and reconnected with the land…He hopes the book can help non-Indigenous people understand the hardships some Indigenous people like him face.
‘There’s a lot of things that people can do and I hope that Life in the City of Dirty Water inspires both Native and non-Native people you know to come together and understand each other, maybe a little bit more, have a little bit more empathy, little more kindness, and most importantly that it activates people and normalizes conversations about some pretty tough topics,’ he said.”
Life in the City of Dirty Water can be purchased wherever books are sold as well as online.
