Host Nathan Maharaj spoke with Antonio Michael Downing, author of the 2021 memoir Saga Boy: My Life of Blackness and Becoming, as well as the illustrated children’s book Stars in My Crown. For just about a year now he’s also been the host of CBC’s The Next Chapter, where every week he talks to authors (and once in a while an opinionated bookseller) about books they want people to pay attention to. He joined us to talk about his first novel: Black Cherokee. It’s the story of Ophelia Blue Rivers, a girl growing up in South Carolina where her mixed ancestry leaves her struggling for acceptance amidst the Cherokee community where her grandmother raised her.
