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Winner of the 2025 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama
A woman trawls the bottom of a riverbed with a makeshift plough, hoping to dislodge something—anything. The world has drastically changed: rivers run dry, rampant bushfires leave little left to burn. Still she persists searching for the stories of her loved ones, maybe even her own. She is not alone—an ancestor watches nearby. This desolate landscape is about to unearth its long-held secrets.
Inspired by the grassroots organization Drag the Red, which searches for evidence of missing Indigenous women, girls, and 2 Spirit people in the Red River of Treaty One Territory, this ethereal and engrossing drama is a profound offering to those who persevere in spite of sorrow. Told in Anishinaabemowin, English, and French, Tara Beagan’s prophetic play draws a direct connection between the treatment of Indigenous peoples and the abuse inflicted on the land. Fluid and majestic like the river itself, Rise, Red River is an invocation, a revelation, and a call to action.
“Rise, Red River is a powerful, evocative, empowering reclamation of space, voices, families and stories. Tara Beagan gently guides us through a community experience of healing in which those who are lost can be found. A beautifully urgent and necessary act of reclaiming lives with grace, dignity and respect. Creative, original, important and impressive.”
—Governor General's Literary Award Peer Assessment Committee
“Rise, Red River offers us a story of connection and hope in a world where Indigenous matriarchs continue to laugh and cry, sing and yell.”
—Prairie Books NOW