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Today, Jesse Thistle is a celebrated professor of Indigenous history in Canada. But as a child, he was a high school drop-out, raised by his disciplinarian white paternal grandparents and cut off from his mother and his Métis Cree roots. It set him on a self-destructive path to drug addiction, homelessness and prison. In jail and in his 30s, Jesse learned to read. After he was released, he would reach the pinnacle of academic success – finding his identity, his calling and along the way, his long-lost mother. Jesse’s memoir is called From the Ashes.

Anu was speaking to Jesse in 2020. He's recently got in touch to let us know that he and his wife Lucie now have a daughter, baby Rose.

Presenter: Anu Anand
Producer: Sophie Eastaugh and Maryam Maruf

(Photo: Jesse Thistle. Credit: Lucie Thistle)