Shapes of Native Nonfiction: Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0295745754 ISBN 13: 9780295745756

Publisher: University of Washington Press, 2019

Synopsis

Just as a basket's purpose determines its materials, weave, and shape, so too is the purpose of the essay related to its material, weave, and shape. Editors Elissa Washuta and Theresa Warburton ground this anthology of essays by Native writers in the formal art of basket weaving. Using weaving techniques such as coiling and plaiting as organizing themes, the editors have curated an exciting collection of imaginative, world-making lyric essays by twenty-seven contemporary Native writers from tribal nations across Turtle Island into a well-crafted basket.

Shapes of Native Nonfiction features a dynamic combination of established and emerging Native writers, including Stephen Graham Jones, Deborah Miranda, Terese Marie Mailhot, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Eden Robinson, and Kim TallBear. Their ambitious, creative, and visionary work with genre and form demonstrate the slippery, shape-changing possibilities of Native stories. Considered together, they offer responses to broader questions of materiality, orality, spatiality, and temporality that continue to animate the study and practice of distinct Native literary traditions in North America.

About this title

About the Author:

Elissa Washuta (Cowlitz) is assistant professor of creative writing at the Ohio State University. Theresa Warburton is a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in American studies and English at Brown University and assistant professor of English at Western Washington University.

Review:

"In this anthology, shape matters. It turns the essay into a resistant form, pushing against the myth of the 'disappearing Native' and asserting a new narrative, one that isn't subject to colonizing. . . . Shapes of Native Nonfiction is full of cognitive and emotional work. It turns the essay into something alive and breathing."―Cincinnati Review

"The medium is the message in this formally daring anthology of essays from Native writers, organized into basket-weaving themes such as 'coiling' and 'plaiting.' In these 27 essays by writers hailing from multiple tribal nations, some established and some newcomers, the Native experience is interrogated, elucidated, and celebrated."―Esquire

"I love essay collections, and those that in some way address the essay form itself are my favorite. . . . There is tremendous variety on offer here, both in terms of subject and tone."―Book Riot

"It's not hard to imagine this work as a staple of creative writing course syllabi for years to come. A must for any library."―Library Journal

"In gathering contemporary Native nonfiction, this book elucidates the roots of the form-conscious essay and brings together the exciting current work of Native writers. In a sweeping decolonizing gesture, this anthology challenges the nonfiction canon as it's been taught and creates a porous new space in its place."―Essay Daily

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 0295745754
• ISBN 13: 9780295745756
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 280
• Editor: Washuta Elissa, Warburton Theresa