American Indian lives

Publisher description: In Winged Words Laura Coltelli interviews some of America's foremost Indian poets and novelists, including Paula Gunn Allen, Michael Dorris, Louise Erdrich, Joy Harjo, Linda Hogan, N. Scott Momaday, Simon Ortiz, Wendy Rose, Leslie Marmon Silko, Gerald Vizenor; and James Welch. They candidly discuss the debt to old and the creation of new traditions, the proprieties of age and gender; and the relations between Indian writers and non-Indian readers and critics, and between writers and anthropologists and histo-rians. In exploring a wide range of topics, each writer arrives at his or her own moment of truth.

One of the foremost Native American intellectuals of his generation (1904-77), D'Arcy McNickle is best known today for the American Indian history center that carries his name at the Newberry Library in Chicago, and for his novels, The Surrounded (1936), Runner in the Sun (1954), and Wind from an Enemy Sky (1978). Not only a historian and novelist, he was also an anthropologist, BIA official during the heady days of the Indian New Deal, teacher, and founding member of. the National Congress of American Indians. The child of a Metis mother and white father, he was an enrolled member of the Flathead Tribe of Montana. But first, and largely by choice, he was a Native American who sought to restore pride and self-determination to all Native American people. Based on a wide range of previously untapped sources, this first full-length biography traces the course of McNickle's life from the reservation of his childhood through a career of. major import to American Indian political and cultural affairs. In so doing it reveals a man who affirmed his own heritage while giving a collective Indian voice to many who had previously seen themselves only in a tribal context.

"Postindian Conversations is the first collection of in-depth interviews with Gerald Vizenor, one of the most powerful and provocative voices in the Native world today. These lively conversations with the preeminent novelist and cultural critic reveal much about the man, his literary creations, and his critical perspectives on important issues affecting Native peoples in the late twentieth century. Readers gain crucial insights into the genesis of Vizenor's fiction and its imagery, characters, and plots. The book also casts new light on his sometimes controversial ideas about contemporary Native identity, politics, economics, scholarship, and literature. These conversations are particularly valuable for their clarification of concepts and terminology central to Vizenor's work."--Jacket.

"George Copway (Kahgegagahbowh, 1818-69), a Canadian Ojibwe writer and lecturer, rose to prominence in American literary, political, and social circles during the mid-nineteenth century. His colorful, kaleidoscopic life took him from the tiny Ojibwe village of his youth to the halls of state legislatures throughout the eastern United States and eventually overseas. Copway converted to Methodism as a teenager and traveled throughout the Midwest as a missionary. He became a forceful and energetic spokesman for temperance and the rights and sovereignty of Indians, lecturing to large crowds in the United States and Europe and founding a newspaper devoted to native issues.". "Published originally in 1847, this edition of Life, Letters and Speeches marks the 150th anniversary of its first appearance. One of the first Native American autobiographies, it chronicles Copway's unique and often difficult cultural journey. Copway vividly captures the freedom of his early childhood, the dramatic moment of his spiritual awakening to Methodism, the rewards and frustrations of missionary work, a desperate race home to warn of a pending Sioux attack, and the harrowing rescue of his son from drowning."--BOOK JACKET.