Tomson Highway
Tomson Highway (born 6 December 1951) is an Indigenous Canadian playwright, novelist, children's author and musician. He is best known for his plays The Rez Sisters and Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, both of which won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play and the Floyd S. Chalmers Award. Highway also published a novel, Kiss of the Fur Queen (1998), which is based on the events that led to his brother René Highway's death of AIDS. He wrote the libretto for the first Cree language opera, The Journey or Pimooteewin. Biography Tomson Highway was born on 6 December 1951 in northwestern Manitoba to Pelagie Cook and Joe Highway, a caribou hunter and champion dogsled racer. Cree is his first language and he was raised according to Cree tradition before being sent to residential school. He is related to actor/playwright Billy Merasty. When he was six, Tomson's father voluntarily enrolled him at Guy Hill Indian Residential School. Until he was fifteen, he was allowed to return home only during the summer months. Some children who attended residential schools later reported abuse. Highway has said that "Nine of the happiest years of my life I spent it at that