SOURCE: Friis-Baastad, Erling. “Red and White and Bleak All Over.” Books in Canada 10 (October 1981): 15-16.

In the following excerpt, Friis-Baastad praises the tales in Born Indian, noting that “these stories will move you as only the best products of the art of storytelling can.”

In his previous short-story collections, Dance Me Outside and Scars, Kinsella introduced his narrator, Silas Ermineskin, and the Indians of a reserve near Hobbema, Alta. In Born Indian he continues to chronicle their misadventures. The cover blurb calls our attention to the great sense of humour that runs through these stories. The publisher certainly isn't putting us on, though it is an oversimplification: as deftly handled as it is, the humour is only one tone on this canvas.

In a review of 77: Best Canadian Short Stories (in the Winter, 1978, issue of The Fiddlehead) John Mills accused Kinsella of taking a typical middle-class liberal's approach...