With A Minor Chorus — titled Chœur infime in its french translation by Mishka Lavigne—, Billy-Ray Belcourt is publishing not only his first novel after years devoted to poetry, but also a deeply personal story. The queer Indigenous author pushes his narrator to leave behind academic life, return to northern Alberta, and interview people who have endured the brutality of history, in order to write the “autobiography of the rural world” he grew up in.
Why did poetry call to you first?
Billy-Ray Belcourt:
My introduction to creative writing—as a means of expression and a way to deepen my political awareness—happened through poetry. I followed spoken word artists on social media and saw recordings of their performances where they expressed deep emotions about history, which resonated deeply with me. I saw poetry as a way to explore the many layers of being Indigenous and queer in Alberta. I also think poetry drew me in because it allowed me to insist on my right to be free, without being excessively defined by systems of oppression.
What was it like growing up queer and Indigenous in northern Alberta?
Billy-Ray Belcourt:
Back then, northern Alberta was very conservative. My understanding of queerness existed through homophobia or the absence of queer people. I built my queerness through literature and media. I would hide in the basement to watch LGBTQ+ shows when no one was home. I bought queer novels with my allowance. When I moved to Edmonton for school, hoping to finally express my queerness, I was unprepared for the racism and colonialism I encountered in queer spaces.
Your narrator wants to smash the past wide open to let in a light he didn’t know existed. Would you say his instinct is to explore the past?
Billy-Ray Belcourt:
Absolutely. He decides to return to northern Alberta to interview people who have, each in their own way, experienced the brutality of history. He does this because he realizes you can’t separate yourself from the past.
By going back instead of fleeing, he hopes to understand something rather than be crushed by it. That reflects my own story as someone who grew up in a terrible time to be Indigenous and queer.
He also feels the need to leave academia so that his writing doesn’t only serve institutional knowledge. Do you share that feeling?
Billy-Ray Belcourt:
Yes, it mirrors my own decision to move away from academic writing and university life. Initially, I thought I’d find my place in a department of cultural or English studies, but at a certain point, I wanted my work to exist beyond that world. If I only used academic language, I would alienate the audiences who matter most to me. My work still carries an academic perspective, but the emotional dimension is just as important as theory. A novel allows me to bring all those elements into the same space.
Why was it necessary to write the “autobiography of rural Alberta” through these interviews?
Billy-Ray Belcourt:
For one thing, there are very few books about life in northern Alberta in general—and none I could find about queer Indigenous life there. Also, if I had anything to write in a novel, it had to speak to the context of my youth.
That said, I didn’t want to interview members of my family and put them in uncomfortable positions. So I created characters who could speak to what it means to live there: a closeted gay man, a woman confronting heteropatriarchy, a Cree man experiencing police brutality, etc. They speak about experiences that aren’t necessarily mine.
Your character becomes the family’s writer, historian, and coroner. Would you say he feels a responsibility to infuse beauty and meaning into past lives?
Billy-Ray Belcourt:
He realizes that people don’t often talk about their pasts in aesthetic or political terms. Ironically, those who experience the most intense forms of oppression often don’t have access to the language needed to conceptualize their experiences. The novel is truly an attempt to give them the words to speak about their lives in that way. Of course, the book has a political purpose, but also an aesthetic one, as you mentioned. I wanted to speak of their lives not only by highlighting their pain, but also the beauty of their survival.
You write that we shouldn’t create only in response to the state of the world, and that the street should be our blank page. Do you still feel that inner conflict when writing?
Billy-Ray Belcourt:
There are moments in history when art can seem futile. I was writing this book during the trial of Gerald Stanley for the murder of Colten Boushie, a Cree man in Saskatchewan. That trial exposed many horrifying logics of colonization. I knew the law wouldn’t necessarily deliver justice, but I still felt overwhelmed by the not-guilty verdict. I felt like my writing was useless in that moment, and I wanted my character to reflect that ambivalence. But ultimately, the character writes the book as a form of resistance.
INFOS | CHŒUR INTIME, by Billy-Ray Belcourt, translated in french by Mishka Lavigne, Triptyque Queer, 2025, 196 p.
https://billy-raybelcourt.com
