Author Thomas King, long-celebrated for work rooted in what he believed was his partial Cherokee heritage, has revealed that he has no Indigenous ancestry to speak of.

The American-born, Canada-based writer, scholar and activist made the admission in a repentant guest essay for The Globe and Mail on Monday titled “A most inconvenient Indian,” a reference to his 2012 best-selling non-fiction work The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America.

Prompted by recent “rumours” of a dubious ancestry, King wrote that he took it upon himself to get in touch with the Tribal Alliance Against Frauds (TAAF), an American Cherokee organization he would come to discover was the very source of those rumours.

He explained how he learned the truth during a video call in mi

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