Thomas Hunt King was born in Roseville, California, on April 24, 1943.[2][3] He self-identifies as being of Cherokee, Greek, and German descent.[4][3] King says his father left the family when the boys were very young, and that they were raised almost entirely by their mother.[5][6] In his series of Massey Lectures, eventually published as a book The Truth About Stories (2003), King tells that after their father's death, he and his brother learned that their father had two other families, neither of whom knew about the third.[5][6]
As a child, King attended grammar school in Roseville, California, and both private Catholic and public high schools. After flunking out of Sacramento State University, he joined the US Navy for a brief period of time before receiving a medical discharge for a knee injury. Following this, King worked several jobs, including as an ambulance driver, bank teller, and photojournalist in New Zealand for three years.
King eventually completed bachelor's and master's degrees from Chico State University in California. He moved to Utah, where he worked as a counselor for American Indian students before completing a PhD program in English at the University of Utah. His 1971 MA thesis was on film studies.[7] His 1986 PhD dissertation[8] was on Native American studies, one of the earliest works to explore the oral storytelling tradition as literature.[9] Around this time, King became interested in American Indian oral traditions and storytelling.[9]
Teaching
After moving to Canada in 1980, King taught Native studies at the University of Lethbridge (Alberta) in the early 1980s. He also served as a faculty member of the University of Minnesota's American Indian studies department. As of 2020, King was listed as Professor (retired), Professor Emeritus,
School of English and Theatre Studies by the University of Guelph (Ontario).[10]
Activism
King has criticized policies and programs of both the United States and Canadian governments in many interviews and books.[5] He is worried about aboriginal prospects and rights in North America. He says that he fears that aboriginal culture, and specifically aboriginal land, will continue to be taken away from aboriginal peoples until there is nothing left for them at all. In his 2013 book The Inconvenient Indian, King says, "The issue has always been land. It will always be land, until there isn't a square foot of land left in North America that is controlled by Native people."[11]
King also discusses policies regarding aboriginal status. He noted that legislatures in the 1800s in the United States and Canada withdrew aboriginal status from persons who graduated from university or joined the army. King has also worked to identify North American laws that make it complicated to claim status in the first place, for example, the US Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 or Canada's 1985 Bill C-31. Bill C-31 amended the Indian Act in 1985 to allow aboriginal women and their children to reclaim status, which the Act had previously withdrawn if the woman married a non-status man. King claims that the amended act, though progressive for women who had lost their status, threatens the status of future generations because of its limitations.[5]
Writings
King has been writing novels, and children's books, and collections of stories since the 1980s. His notable works include A Coyote Columbus Story (1992) and Green Grass, Running Water (1993) – both of which were nominated for a Governor General's Award (the former for children's literature, and the latter for fiction[9] – and The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America (2012), which won the 2014 RBC Taylor Prize.[12] King's novel, Indians on Vacation (2020), won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour in 2021.
King was chosen to deliver the 2003 Massey Lectures, entitled The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative.[5] King was the first Massey lecturer of self-identifying aboriginal descent. King explored the Native experience in oral stories, literature, history, religion and politics, popular culture and social protest in order to make sense of North America's relationship with its aboriginal peoples.
King's writing style incorporates oral storytelling structures with traditional Western narrative. He writes in a conversational tone; for example, in Green Grass, Running Water, the narrator argues with some of the characters. In The Truth About Stories, King addresses the reader as if in a conversation with responses. King uses a variety of anecdotes and humorous narratives while maintaining a serious message in a way that has been compared to the style of trickster legends in Native American culture. Within this story, King also integrates the recently popularized idea of turtles all the way down in an anecdote introducing this narrative, calling into the relevancy of this ideology in American and Native American history.
In the 1990s, he served as story editor for Four Directions,[14] a CBC Television drama anthology series about First Nations which was held up by production and scheduling delays before finally airing in 1996.[15] He also wrote the teleplay "Borders", an adaptation of his own previously published short story, for the series.[15]
From 1997 to 2000, King wrote and acted in a CBC radio show, The Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour, which featured a fictitious town and a fictitious radio program hosted by three First Nations characters. Elements were adapted from his novel, Green Grass, Running Water. The broadcast was a political and social satire with dark humour and mocking stereotypes.
In July 2007, King made his directorial debut with I'm Not the Indian You Had in Mind, a short film which he wrote.[16]
His partner is Helen Hoy, a professor emerita of English and Women's Studies at the University of Guelph, School of English and Theatre Studies.[18] She has written a study, How Should I Read These? Native Women Writers in Canada, (2001). He has three children, Christian (born 1971), Benjamin (born 1985) and Elizabeth (born 1988). The couple resides in Guelph, Ontario.[19]
The Truth About Stories (House of Anansi Press, 2003); US edition The Truth About Stories: a native narrative (U. of Minnesota Press, 2005) – Massey Lectures
Selected in 2003 to give the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Massey Lectures. The series, entitled The Truth About Stories, was published that year by the House of Anansi Press.
Green Grass, Running Water was chosen for the inclusion in the 2004 edition of Canada Reads, and championed by then-WinnipegmayorGlen Murray. In the 2015 edition of Canada Reads, his non-fiction book The Inconvenient Indian was defended by activist Craig Kielburger.
In November 2020, King was named a Companion of the Order of Canada. He had been named a Member of the Order of Canada six years earlier.[19] The naming was because of King's "enduring contributions to the preservation and recognition of indigenous culture, as one of North America’s most acclaimed literary figures".[25]
