Michelle Good

Michelle Good is a Canadian author of Cree heritage whose debut novel Five Little Indians (2020) won the Governor General's Literary Award for English-language fiction and the HarperCollins/UBC Prize for Best New Fiction. The novel follows five survivors of the Canadian residential school system as they try to reclaim their lives in 1960s and 1970s Vancouver. Five Little Indians is a landmark work of Canadian Indigenous literature that brought the horror and legacy of residential schools to a wide readership. It was published shortly before the discovery of unmarked graves at former residential schools re-ignited national conversation about the genocide of Indigenous peoples in Canada. The novel is grounded in rigorous historical research and deeply humanistic storytelling. Good is a lawyer and activist as well as a writer, and spent decades involved in First Nations legal and political issues before publishing her debut novel. She is a member of the Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan.