782 The American Century: Literature since 1945“We are what we imagine,” N. Scott Momaday (1934–) from the Kiowa tribe once
wrote. “Our very existence consists in the imagination of ourselves.... The greatest
tragedy that can befall us is to go unimagined.” Momaday has also remarked that,
when he began writing the novel that established his reputation, House Made of
Dawn (1968), he did not know any other works of Native American fiction existed.
To that extent, he was faced with an “unimagined” collective existence, the erasure
of Native Americans from the national literature and life. And, although this was
more a matter of perception than fact – since works of Native American fiction
were, after all, in existence before House Made of Dawn – it is nevertheless true that
Momaday’s remarkable first book helped to usher in a renaissance in Native
American writing. Following its publication and critical and commercial success, a
whole series of works, especially in prose, have helped to establish the Native
American presence, and helped Native American readers in particular to see, and
imagine, who they were and what they might become. In nonfiction, notable works
have included Custer Died For Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto (1969) by the Sioux
writer Vine Deloria (1933–2005) and The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in
American Indian Traditions (1986) by the Native feminist and gay rights activist,
Paula Gunn Allen (1939–2008), from the Laguna Pueblo tribe. In fiction, among
other key books there have been Mean Spirit (1990) by the Chickasaw novelist,
Linda Hogan (1947–), which describes how Osage Indians, after the discovery of oil
fields on their reservations, endured a campaign of racial abuse from whites who
would not stop at murder to make the oil theirs, and Power (1998), also by Hogan,
which focuses on a young woman whose allegiances are divided between her
Westernized mother and the customs and beliefs of her traditional people. There
have been Medicine River (1989) and Green Grass, Running Water (1993) by the
Cherokee writer Thomas King (1943–), the later book featuring the trickster
figure Coyote, and a host of other extraordinary characters, gathering for the Sun
Dance ceremony on a Blackfeet reservation. There has also been a series of milestone
novels by Martin Cruz-Smith (1942–) from the Senecu del Sur and Yaqui tribes
(from The Indians Won (1970) through Gorky Park (1981) to Stalin’s Ghost (2007)),
Janet Campbell Hale (1946–), from the Coeur d’Alene and Kootenai tribes (whose
finest novel so far is The Jailing of Cecelia Capture (1985)), and the Cherokee Betty
Bell (1949–) (Faces in the Moon (1994)), as well as fiction from the Cherokee writer
Diane Glancy (1941–) (Claiming Breath (1992), Firesticks (1993)), the Chippewa
Basil Johnston (The Bear-Walker and Other Stories (1995)), Michael Dorris (1945–
1997) from the Modoc tribe (A Yellow Raft in Blue Water (1997)), Susan Power
(1961–) from the Standing Rock Sioux (The Grass Dancer (1991)), and Greg Sarris
(1952–) from the Miwok tribe (Grand Avenue (1994)). Significant or seminal though
the work by all these writers is, however, the core texts in the Native American
renaissance in fiction, following Momaday, have been written by five others: Leslie
Marmon Silko (1948–), James Welch (1940–2003), Louise Erdrich (1954–), Gerald
Vizenor (1934–), and Sherman Alexie (1966–). Key workers in prose fiction, each of
these five has produced work worthy to stand with House Made of Dawn. As
remarkable as they are remarkably different, all of them together with MomadayGGray_c05.indd 782ray_c 05 .indd 782 8 8/1/2011 7:31:45 PM/ 1 / 2011 7 : 31 : 45 PM