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Canada  

Res. school author dies

A residential school survivor who found a measure of fame late in his life has died.

Joseph (Augie) Merasty was living on the streets of Prince Albert, Sask., when he wrote his 2015 memoir "The Education of Augie Merasty."

The book documents a decade of abuse Merasty suffered at a residential school near Sturgeon Landing, Sask.

The 87-year-old died Monday morning in a Prince Albert nursing home.

Merasty was five years old when he was sent to the school.

He began work on the book after reaching out to the University of Saskatchewan for help sharing his story.

“I talk about that school and all the cruel things, and what kinds of punishment we get for the least little things,” Merasty told CTV News in a 2015 interview.

David Carpenter, an author who helped Merasty write the memoir, said he was initially hesitant to take on the project until Merasty’s storytelling hooked him in.

“He gave these characters to me in all their complexity,” Carpenter said Tuesday. “He’s not exactly literate, and yet he's such a good observer of human nature.”

The two needed more than a decade to finalize the 75-page book, which has since become an award-winning, national bestseller and earned praise from critics.

Merasty held numerous jobs throughout his life — including fisherman, trapper, boxer and artist — but spent a lot of his adulthood living on the street, battling alcohol addiction, prostate cancer and dementia.



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