Tomson Highway

Tomson Highway is a monumental Cree playwright, novelist, classical pianist, and composer whose trailblazing creative canon has profoundly revolutionized Indigenous theatre and contemporary literature across the globe. Born in a sub-Arctic snowbank along the Manitoba-Nunavut border to a nomadic family of caribou hunters, Highway grew up speaking Cree and Dene before being forcibly removed to attend a Catholic residential school. He went on to formalize his extraordinary artistic foundation at Western University, graduating with a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance and a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature. Before dedicating himself full-time to the arts, Highway spent seven years as a frontline Native social worker. He vaulted into international creative stardom with his Dora Mavor Moore Award-winning plays The Rez Sisters and Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, which pioneered a new era for Indigenous dramatic arts. He achieved historical literary acclaim with his sweeping debut novel, Kiss of the Fur Queen, a deeply poignant, semi-autobiographical chronicle following two Cree brothers taken from their trapline roots, subjected to residential school traumas, and guided by a wily, shape-shifting trickster figure to reclaim themselves through music and dance. An Officer of the Order of Canada holding over ten honorary doctorates, he solidified his non-fiction legacy by winning the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Permanent Astonishment: A Memoir. Moving vibrantly through 2025 and 2026, Highway continues to dominate the Canadian cultural landscape. Honored as a recipient of the prestigious 2025 Library and Archives Canada Scholar Award, Highway has spent 2026 driving high-level artistic panels and country-music revues—anchored by his album Cree Country—while major legacy publishers orchestrate massive international distribution strategies for his definitive Indigenous epics.