In that moment, I felt closer to whiteness than not. I was completely complicit and didn?t think twice about entering a space that could cover their walls with images of contemporary Indigenous perspectives, but exclude their physical bodies from entering and experiencing. In that moment, I felt like a real Canadian.

Before I Was a Critic I Was a Human Being is the debut collection of nonfiction essays by Amy Fung. In it, Fung takes a closer examination at Canada's mythologies of multiculturalism, settler colonialism, and identity through the lens of a national art critic.

Following the tangents of a foreign-born perspective and the complexities and complicities in participating in ongoing acts of colonial violence, the book as a whole takes the form of a very long land acknowledgement. Taken individually, each essay roots itself in the learning and unlearning process of a first generation settler immigrant as she unfurls each region's sense of place and identity

Praise for Before I Was a Critic I Was a Human Being:

?The hours I've spent with this knowing and moving book about place and placelessness are among the most valuable of my reading life. Wow, thank you, Amy." -Eileen Myles

"As an Indigenous/Haudenosaunee writer and reader, I recognize that Amy Fung's book does not try to convince us that she is a native rights ally but shows us with language how to mould the term ally into a verb." -Janet Rogers, author of Totem Poles and Railroads

"In this compelling work, Amy Fung breathes life and relevance into criticality. This visitor's guide is integral reading." -Cecily Nicholson, author of Wayside Sang, winner of the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry.

About the Author
AMY FUNG is a writer, researcher and curator born in Kowloon, Hong Kong, and spent her formative years in and around Edmonton on Treaty 6 Territory. Her writings have been published and commissioned by national and international publications, galleries, museums, festivals, and journals since 2007. Her multifarious curatorial projects have spanned exhibitions, cinematic and live presentations, as well as discursive events across Canada and abroad.

Reviews
"Moving effortlessly from personal anecdote to unsettling recognition of her own complicity to disturbing insight and political statement, Fung's testimony is essential reading." John Yau, Hyperallergic
The hours I've spent with this knowing and moving book about place and placelessness are among the most valuable of my reading life. Wow, thank you, Amy." -- Eileen Myles
"As an Indigenous/Haudenosaunee writer and reader, I recognize that Amy Fung's book does not try to convince us that she is a native rights ally but shows us with language how to mould the term ally into a verb." -- Janet Rogers, author of Totem Poles and Railroads
In this compelling work, Amy Fung breathes life and relevance into criticality. This visitor's guide is integral reading." -- Cecily Nicholson, author of Wayside Sang, winner of the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry


Awards
Short-listed for The Believer Book Award 2019 (United States).



Book Information
ISBN 9781771665056
Author Amy Fung
Format Paperback
Page Count 200
Imprint Book*hug
Publisher Book*hug
Weight(grams) 231g
Dimensions(mm) 203mm * 132mm * 20mm