Markoosie Patsauq (ᒫᑯᓯ ᐸᑦᓴᐅᖅ, 1941/42 - 2020) was a Canadian

Inuk Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and ...

writer from Inukjuak (

Nunavik Nunavik (; ; iu, ᓄᓇᕕᒃ) comprises the northern third of the province of Quebec, part of the Nord-du-Québec region and nearly coterminous with Kativik. Covering a land area of north of the 55th parallel, it is the homeland of the I ...

Québec Quebec ( ; )According to the Government of Canada, Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is ...

). He is best known for ''Harpoon of the Hunter'' (ᐊᖑᓇᓱᑦᑎᐅᑉ ᓇᐅᒃᑯᑎᖓ), the first published

Inuktitut language Inuktitut (; , syllabics ; from , "person" + , "like", "in the manner of"), also Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, is one of the principal Inuit languages of Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the tree line, including parts of the provinces o ...

novel; the novel was written later, but published earlier (1970), than Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk's '' Sanaaq''. Born near

Inukjuak Inukjuak ( iu, ᐃᓄᒃᔪᐊᒃ, ''Inujjuaq'' or ''Inukjuaq'' in Latin script, meaning 'The Giant') is a northern village (Inuit community) located on Hudson Bay at the mouth of the Innuksuak River in Nunavik, in the region of northern Queb ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

,"Markoosie Patsauq, first Inuit novelist, lived the history of his people"

CBC North CBC North ( iu, ᓰᐲᓰ ᐅᑭᐅᖅᑕᖅᑐᒥ, lit=CBC Northwest, translit=, SiiPiiSii Ukiuqtaqtumi; cr, ᓰᐲᓰ ᒌᐌᑎᓅᑖᐦᒡ, label=cr, SiiPiiSii Chiiwetinuutaahch; french: Radio-Canada Nord) is the Canadian Broadcasting Corpora ...

, April 20, 2020. his was one of the families forcibly relocated to Resolute,

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories (abbreviated ''NT'' or ''NWT''; french: Territoires du Nord-Ouest, formerly ''North-Western Territory'' and ''North-West Territories'' and namely shortened as ''Northwest Territory'') is a federal territory of Canada. ...

in the

High Arctic relocation The High Arctic relocation (french: La délocalisation du Haut-Arctique, iu, ᖁᑦᑎᒃᑐᒥᐅᑦᑕ ᓅᑕᐅᓂᖏᑦ, Quttiktumut nuutauningit) took place during the Cold War in the 1950s, when 92 Inuit were moved by the Government of Ca ...

in 1953. He later attended high school in

Yellowknife Yellowknife (; Dogrib: ) is the capital, largest community, and only city in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is on the northern shore of Great Slave Lake, about south of the Arctic Circle, on the west side of Yellowknife Bay near the ...

."MARKOOSIE, 1942-: LMS-0017"

Collections Canada Library and Archives Canada (LAC; french: Bibliothèque et Archives Canada) is the federal institution, tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is th ...

. Patsauq wrote the coming of age story ''Harpoon of the Hunter'' in 1969 when he worked as a pilot (the first Inuk pilot in Canada), using material he had heard from family members. It was serialized in the Inuit periodical ''Inuttituut'' before being published in an English translation in 1970. In Ukrainian, the story was first published in 1974 by the publishing house Veselka (Rainbow). A French translation was published in 2013, and translations into

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

and

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

followed in 2015. He also wrote short stories and non-fiction, although none of his other work became as known as ''Harpoon of the Hunter''. In 2016, scholar

Valerie Henitiuk Valerie Henitiuk (born 1963 in Manning, Alberta) is a scholar researching aspects of the intersection of translation studies, world literature, Inuit literature, Japanese literature, and women's writing. She is a Canadian citizen, recently retired a ...

, was studying how the meaning of the original story written in Inuktitut may have changed when it was translated into English; subsequent translations were based on that English translation. He died in March 2020 at his home in Inukjuak.

References

External links

*Exile in childhood: one man's memoir by Markoosie Patsauq in

Nunatsiaq News ''Nunatsiaq News'' ( iu, ᓄᓇᑦᓯᐊᕐᒥ ᐱᕙᓪᓕᐊᔪᑦ, italic=no) is a Canadian weekly newspaper in operation since 1973 based in Iqaluit, serving Nunavut and Nunavik, in Kativik, Quebec, Kativik, Nord-du-Québec. The paper is publ ...

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* The manuscript of Harpoon of the Hunter by Markoosie Patsau
(Harpoon of the Hunter collection, R11775)
is held at

Library and Archives Canada Library and Archives Canada (LAC; french: Bibliothèque et Archives Canada) is the federal institution, tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is th ...

1942 births 20th-century Canadian novelists Canadian male novelists Inuit writers People from Nunavik Writers from Nunavut Writers from Quebec 20th-century Canadian male writers Inuit from Quebec People from Resolute 2020 deaths {{Canada-writer-stub