The Woman Who Owned the Shadows

first novel by & about a Native woman in 50 years

Paula Gunn Allen, Laguna Pueblo/Sioux/Scots/Lebanese poet, philosopher, scholar, and teacher, was born in Cubero, New Mexico, in 1939. She received her doctorate from the University of New Mexico in 1976; her dissertation evolved into a major work of cultural criticism, The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. Two volumes of her poetry, SKINS AND BONES and LIFE IS A FATAL DISEASE, were published by West End Press. A work of fiction, THE WOMAN WHO OWNED THE SHADOWS, was published by Aunt Lute Books. She completed the manuscript for AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL a week before her death on May 29, 2008 in Fort Bragg, California.