SOURCE: An interview in paragraph, Vol. 16, No. 1, Summer, 1994, pp. 2-6.

In the following interview, originally conducted in November 1993, King discusses various aspects of his writing and his Canadian, American, and Native identities.

[Canton]: One of the themes that surfaces over and over again in your fiction is the question of identity: "What does it mean to be Indian? What does it mean to be Canadian?" Why do you think you keep coming back to those questions?

[King]: It's not a question that concerns me all that much personally, but it is an important question in my fiction. Because it's question that other people always ask. Readers demand an answer to it, and it's part of that demand for authenticity within the world in which we live. It's the question that Native people have to put up with. And it's a whip that we get beaten with—"Are you...