Harold R. Johnson (1954-2022)

Cree author Harold R. Johnson, 68, died February 9, 2022 of lung cancer in Canada. He wrote 11 books, including novels with speculative elements, notably Corvus (2015) and The Björkan Sagas (2021).

Johnson was born in 1954 in Saskatchewan, and was a member of the Montreal Lake Cree Nation. He served in the Royal Canadian Navy and was a trapper, logger, and miner before attending Harvard and becoming a lawyer, first in private practice and later as a prosecutor for the Crown. He wrote debut novel Billy Tinker (2001) during law school. His non-fiction includes Firewater: How Alcohol Is Killing My People (And Yours) (2018).