Wondrous Hauntings in Eden Robinson's <em>Monkey Beach</em>

In Why Indigenous Literatures Matter (2018), Cherokee author Daniel Heath Justice suggests the term “wonderwork” as a useful alternative to “speculative fiction” or “fantastic literature”, to describe Indigenous creative works that convey “meaningful ways of experiencing this and other worlds” beyond dualistic notions of real and unreal. In Justice’s formulation, Indigenous wonderworks counter colonial deficit narratives and inspire radical hope by envisioning alternative futures. Hope does not deny struggle, and it can be a driving force even in texts in which trauma is foregrounded, as in Monkey Beach (2000), the debut novel of Haisla/Heiltsuk author Eden Robinson. Set in the evocative landscapes of British Columbia, enlivened by talking crows, forest spirits, b’gwus, and other more-than-human beings, the novel incorporates Indigenous epistemologies while engaging with and subverting the conventions of the Euro-Canadian Gothic tradition. If Indigenous ghosts have long been a part of a white settler Canadian narrative of dominance – with Indigenous presence spectralized to justify land theft and to enforce a sense of loss and deficit – the ghostly figures in Robinson’s novel oppose colonial tropes and the Gothic’s discourses of pity, absence and terror. Robinson conveys the haunting legacy of residential schools through silences, narrative gaps, and intergenerational echoes of colonial violence, but her ghosts are never merely allegories of trauma. Instead, they embody kinship, knowledge, more-than-human agency, and a profound sense of wonder, engaging Lisa in reciprocal relationships that demand responsibility, interpretation, and care. Drawing from Daniel Heath Justice’s theorization of wonderworks as an antidote to despair, as well as Haisla critical perspectives on wonder, this paper examines how Monkey Beach challenges narratives of Indigenous absence and loss, offering instead a vision of presence, interconnectedness, and radical hope.