King asks his readers to consider the authority of the author. For minority groups, especially those who have suffered the degree of persecution that native groups have, there are complex questions about who has the right to speak for others in the community. Especially for authors like King, whose ancestry is so mixed (as is the case for so many American Indian and First Nations writers, artists, and activists), there is always the question of whose story precisely he is telling.

Mistry, an Indian writer from Asia, takes up many of the same themes as does King, for both are the inheritors of fractured heritages, the scions of peoples who have been displaced and damaged by history. Mistry, a member of a religious minority that has been threatened by Islam, also addresses the question of what it means to belong.

"Squatter" presents a story within a story as the narrator...
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