In Northern Light, Kazim Ali explores how a sense of place shapes one's identity. Born in the U.K. to political refugees from India, Ali eventually migrated to Canada with his family. His father worked as an electrical engineer for Manitoba Hydro, the province's electrical authority. Decades later, Ali finds himself drawn back to Jenpeg, a place now gone, having been constructed to last only as long as Hydro needed employees in the area. He ends up visiting the town of Cross Lake, on the Cross Lake Indian Reserve, to learn more about his childhood home. There Ali finds himself "awash in remembrance"--of his childhood, but also in the collective memories of the Pimicikamak Cree people who still live there and hold the memory of the land in their stories. Ali moves from writing a memoir to something larger than the story of one person, one family, or even one place. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm