Joshua Whitehead enjoyed Billy-Ray Belcourt's book This Wound is a World in 2017

Happy holidays!CBC Books asked authors to share their favouritebooks of 2017. We will be publishing these recommendations throughout December.

• Why Joshua Whitehead wants to recentre Indigenous characters with his cyberpunk-infused poetry

Joshua WhiteheadchoseThis Wound is a WorldbyBilly-Ray Belcourt.

"Billy-Ray Belcourt's This Wound is a World is a beautiful elegy on how to live and love as a queer NDN in a world wrought by a tear. His book marks a new wave of Indigenous literature that is brimming with queerness, gender re-membrance, trans creatorsand a singing home of Two-Spirit livelihoods. He stories me into a world where 'each kiss [i]s an act of defiance'and we all round dance to figure out 'what it means to be native.'"

• Billy-Ray Belcourt on writing an 'instruction manual for a queer Indigenous future'

Joshua Whitehead is anOji-Cree, two-spirit writer, poet and Indigiqueerscholar from Peguis First Nation. His book,full-metalindigiqueer, is a collection of experimentalpoems that aim to provoke discussion and debate.