Voice of the Turtle: American Indian Literature, 1900-1970 - Hardcover

Allen, Paula Gunn

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345375262 ISBN 13: 9780345375261

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1994

Synopsis

Gathers Native American writings

About this title

Reviews

YA?In her introduction, Allen clearly expresses her intention: to give non-Native readers the opportunity to experience something of the wholeness of Native thought. And this is exactly what she accomplishes with this masterful collection of stories. Readers are introduced to a representative sampling of 18 different Native American authors who convey stories from their divergent traditions in a variety of forms. After reading such fine selections as Black Elk's "Great Vision," Luther Standing Bear's "First Day at Carlisle," or D'Arcy McNickle's "Train Time," readers will gain a better understanding of various Native peoples. A biographical sketch on each author is included.?Beth Gourley, Handley Regional Library, Winchester, VA
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Allen ( The Sacred Hoop) , a leading figure in Native studies and herself a Laguna Pueblo/Sioux, offers a useful and interesting, if flawed, anthology of American Indian literature of the first seven decades of the 20th century. She also provides a solid introduction, which puts the collected pieces in historical context, and she ushers in each selection with a brief explanatory note. Allen intends this work, as well as its projected sequel, to serve as a kind of map through Native writing for non-Native readers. Major figures in Native letters are represented. A well-chosen selection from N. Scott Momaday's Pulitzer-winning House Made of Dawn , for instance, presents the country's perhaps best-known Native writer in the novel that opened the publishing door for many current Indian authors. Also represented are pivotal writers such as D'Arcy McNickle (though not from his seminal work, The Surrounded ) and John Joseph Mathews (from Sundown , his novel of Osage life in the early part of the century). Nonfiction is also included, and no doubt the collection will be helpful to readers unfamiliar with the rich diversity of Native intellectual history. Yet odd critical judgments mar the volume. One wonders why Allen included multiple pieces by some authors (Charles A. Eastman and John M. Oskison, for example) while excluding the work of other, equally important writers (such as Alexander Posey and Ella Cara Deloria). And such relatively minor figures as Arthur Parker and Estelle Armstrong are represented, as well as works that were coauthored by whites and whose authorial voice and authenticity are difficult to apprehend. Author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Editor Allen is a highly regarded Native American scholar, critic, poet, and novelist whose Spider Woman's Granddaughters (1989), an anthology of writings by Native American women, sold in record numbers. Allen has now compiled the first in a projected two-volume set of twentieth-century Native American literature, an invaluable gap-filler in the canon of American literature. Seventeen authors of fiction, essays, and autobiographies were chosen to represent what Allen calls the vast Native American narrative tradition. In her excellent introduction to the anthology as well as in her lead-ins to each piece, Allen supplies the stories behind the stories. She examines how the legacy of conquest, genocide, and cultural eradication motivated each writer and then identifies prevalent themes: spiritual loss and displacement, conflicts of faith and perception, cultural dissonance in mixed marriages, and the prejudice and fascism of reservation life. Many of the selections portray brave and willful women, such as E. Pauline Johnson's 1906 story A Red Girl's Reasoning; The War Maiden (1906) by Charles A. Eastman (a witness to the massacre at Wounded Knee); and excerpts from Mourning Dove's novel, Cogewea: The Half-Blood (1927). Both Luther Standing Bear and D'Arcy McNickle write about the deplorable conditions and blatant brainwashing that took place at Indian boarding schools. Also included are works by the Pulitzer Prizewinning author N. Scott Momoday and Zitkala-Sa. Donna Seaman

Native American scholar Allen has brought together an excellent, educational selection of Native personal narratives-including those by E. Pauline Johnson (1906), Black Elk (1932), and N. Scott Momaday (1968)-as they have evolved against the cataclysmic events of the 20th century.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0345375262
• ISBN 13: 9780345375261
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 321