Performer Sabina Sweta Sen Podstawska, left, and artist/director/writer Floyd Favel, right. (Submitted photo/Floyd Favel)

By Angela Brown

International success

Poundmaker author, educator Favel shares stories in Poland

Jun 4, 2024 | 2:01 PM

A Poundmaker Cree Nation writer and educator is currently overseas visiting Poland, where he has garnered international success as both an author and an educator.

Floyd Favel is releasing his new book during his trip.

“I’m very happy that I am able to launch my book here, to reach a global audience,” he said. “In a way, it’s sort of a freedom from Canada, a freedom from its categories, and a freedom from its cultural rules, that I can find a more international expression with my work and my writings. It’s something I’ve always strived for because I went to school in Europe for five years when I was young. It really formed my artistic vision. It’s taken me decades to be able to articulate it and present it in a coherent fashion.”

“I’m [here] to share my research that I conducted on Poundmaker at my workplace and at my culture site ,” Favel said. “I’m very happy [with] my local efforts that [I’ve been] able to be re-invited in an international context.”

His book of essays and journalism, called Words from the Land, will be launched in Poland on April 15. The book was written in English, but Favel said his publisher is in Poland, so the book is being released in the Polish language. He noted his book covers more than one genre, so it perhaps may be a bit more difficult to publish it in Canada where books are more often marketed into one genre or identity, rather a mixed-genre or multi-cultural category.

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“Eventually, it will be published in English, once I start looking for a publisher in Canada,” he said.

Favel describes his new book as a collection of his journalism and his theoretical essays on theatre and culture.

“My premise on theatre is that Indigenous Theatre is an artistic genre, and not one defined by colonial identity categories, [such as] First Nations, Métis, Indigenous and distant Indigenous identity, and Indigenous heritage. How we categorize theatre in Canada for Indigenous people is based on identity. Identity now is sort of an obsolete category. It’s an artistic genre – a specific art with its own techniques, methods and body of knowledge. It’s open and accessible to all,” he said.

The book including his journalism was written over the past seven to eight years.

Favel’s journalistic writing focuses on essays he wrote in his travels through Canada, U.S., Japan, and Europe.

“It’s [based on] my observations,” he said. “It’s sort of a fiction-journalism. It’s on culture and issues, and identity.”

Favel noted the early reception to his book has been positive and “eye-opening.”

“I also talk about residential schools, and also the history of our people, and my travels to the United States, meeting other Indigenous people and [learning about] their issues,” he added.

Favel, who is also an educator, will give a course at the University of Katowice, in the south-central part of Poland, starting April 3.

When he has finished his work in Poland, Favel will travel to Sweden on April 21, where he will work with the Sami Theatre troupe and director Åsa Simma.

“I went to school with her in Denmark when I was a student,” he noted on the initiative. “I’m writing and working on a project there.”

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angela.brown@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @battlefordsNOW