Armstrong, Jeannette (1948-…), is a Canadian author and activist. She wrote Slash (1985, revised edition 1988), the first novel written by a First Nations woman in Canada. First Nations is a designation used in Canada for the various Indigenous (native) peoples of Canada.
Slash explores the history of the North American Indian protest movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s. The story is presented as a fictional autobiography told by Tommy Kelasket, a member of the Okanagan, a First Nations people. Tommy was nicknamed Slash by his first girlfriend while he served a prison sentence for his role in a tavern brawl. Slash portrays Tommy’s alienation and struggles with intolerance and racism as he wanders through Canada and into the United States, searching for truth and meaning in his life.
Armstrong also wrote the novel Whispering in Shadows (2000). The story traces the experiences of a young Okanagan activist woman. Armstrong’s poetry was collected in Breath Tracks (1991). She has written the children’s books Enwhisteetkwa (Walk in Water), published in 1982, Neekna and Chemai (1984), and Dancing with Cranes (2004). Her nonfiction works include Native Creative Process (1991), a book on Indigenous philosophy written with the architect Douglas Cardinal, and Native Poetry in Canada (2001), an anthology of Indigenous poetry edited with Lally Grauer.
Jeannette Christine Armstrong was born in 1948 and grew up on the Penticton Indian Reserve in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley, south of Kelowna. She has lived on the reserve for most of her life. Armstrong received a formal education at a one-room schoolhouse on the reserve as well as a traditional Okanagan education from her family. In 1978, Armstrong received a diploma in fine arts from Okanagan College and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Victoria. She was awarded a Ph.D. degree in Indigenous Environmental Ethics in 2009 by the University of Greifswald in Germany, for her work in Syilx oral literature. Syilx << Seem law >> is an Okanagan language.
Armstrong began working on the staff of the En’owkin Centre, operated by the Okanagan Nation, in 1978 and became the executive director in the mid-1980’s. The center provides students with a cultural and academic foundation in pursuing their education beyond secondary school. In 1989, Armstrong co-founded the En’owkin International School of Writing and became its director. She became an assistant professor, and then in 2005, an associate professor, of Indigenous Studies at the University of British Columbia in Okanagon. In 2013, Armstrong was awarded a Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Philosophy, for her work on Syilx traditional knowledge.
