George Ryga was a Canadian poet, novelist, and playwright, who is considered to be one of the most important Canadian writers of his time. Ryga was the son of two Ukrainian immigrants who arrived in Canada in 1927. He grew up in a remote and rural community near Athabasca, Alberta. He attended school in a one-room log schoolhouse and stopped his formal schooling at age 13 when he started to work odd jobs in order to help support his family. He continued his education through correspondence courses and won a creative writing competition that gave him a scholarship to the Banff Centre for the Arts. Over the course of his career, Ryga developed a reputation for his radical politics. He is the author of 13 published works.
The Ecstasy of Rita Joe is a play in two acts by Canadian playwright George Ryga. It is a play of significant cultural and social importance, which has been used by Indigenous activists as a means of forcing dominant structures to face the reality...
