Interview with Yvonne Johnson

Yvonne Johnson, great-great granddaughter of Plains Cree chief Big Bear, is the co-author, along with Canadian writer Rudy Wiebe, of Stolen Life: Journey of a Cree Woman (1998). Their book tells of how Johnson came to be the only First Nations woman in Canada serving a ‘life twenty-five’ sentence for first degree murder. It also narrates Johnson’s experiences of repeated sexual abuse, inflicted on her by family members and strangers, beginning when she was two years old. As Johnson had been born with a cleft palate, she was unable to communicate to others her suffering and so the abuse continued for years.