Inconvenient Indian author Thomas King says he is not part Cherokee

Thomas King, the award-winning Canadian-American author of such books as the 2020 novel Indians on Vacation and 2012’s The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America, is not part Cherokee, as he long assumed himself to be.

In an exclusive interview with The Globe and Mail, the 82-year-old writer said he learned he was not Indigenous when he met recently with the Tribal Alliance Against Frauds, a whistle-blowing organization based in North Carolina that is dedicated to exposing false claims of Native American heritage.