Split Tooth is like nothing I have ever read before, and likely nothing I will ever read again. Calling on her own life and experiences growing up as part of an indigenous Inuit community in Northern Canada, Tagaq begins with a mixture of memoir and poetry, which slowly merge and morph into something different entirely.

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The atmosphere Tagaq creates is palpable; you are instantly transported to the Arctic tundra, where there are months with no sun and then months with no dark, where the delicate balance between humanity and nature are still reeling from the effects of colonisation. As the story progresses, mythology, magical realism and spirituality all come together for a devastating conclusion. Nothing is as it seems, and yet so much is heartbreakingly plain to see. Tagaq doesn’t shy away from the brutality of life, especially a life lived so closely to nature, in some of the most extreme weather conditions on earth, and in a community where, thanks to Canada’s ‘boarding school’ policies, every adult is a survivor of abuse.

I’m struggling to be less vague when I describe the story, but there really is no way to explain it. To tell you the plot would make no sense without Tagaq’s expert writing, and would ruin the bizarre twists and turns the story goes through. There was a point where I knew I was reading non-fiction, and there was a point when I knew I was reading fiction. Where the one became the other, I have no idea.

Tagaq has created an incredibly moving, profound, and affecting depiction of life for Canada’s indigenous population. While her work as an activist is clearly central to many of the novel’s themes, never once does it overpower the strength of her storytelling, the two working together perfectly. I will be trying to work this book out for many months to come, but it will definitely stay with me for many years.

I read Split Tooth as the ‘Arctic/Antarctic’ challenge in the Round the World Book Challenge.