Okla Hannali

"This curious and wonderful tall tale contributes to the apocalyptic revision of American history that began with Little Big Man and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. It’s the tale of Hannali Innominee, a ’Mingo’ or natural lord of the 19th-century Choctaw Indian [and] a capacious, indomitable giant of the ilk of Paul Bunyan....Lafferty tells it straight: how the Choctaw nation, once removed, reconstituted itself and thrived in Indian territory...., how there came a schism between the rich, part-white, slave-owning, moneylending Choctaws and the ’feudal, compassionate, chauvinistic’ full-blooded freeholders like Hannali; and how, during the Civil War, the Indians were manipulated divide-and-conquer fashion in helping destroy each other."–Kirkus Reviews.

R. A. Lafferty (1914–2002) was a writer and retired newspaperman in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He has written many stories and several books, including Archipelago, The Devil Is Dead, Not to Mention Camels, and Ringing Changes.

Geary Hobson is Professor of English at the University of Oklahoma, author of the novel The Last of the Ofos, and editor of The Remembered Earth: An Anthology of Contemporary Native American Literature.