Great Short Stories by Contemporary Native American Writers

Editor: Bob Blaisdell

Publisher: Dover (2014)

This new anthology of short fiction by Native Americans features a wide range of contemporary writers. It includes stories dating from the early twentieth century by Pauline Johnson, daughter of a Mohawk chief, whose works helped define Canadian literature; Zitkala-Sa, a Sioux writer whose books were among the first to bring Native American stories to wider recognition; John M. Oskison, whose Cherokee ancestry informed his tales of the cultural clash faced by children of mixed marriages; and D'Arcy McNickle, Cree activist and anthropologist.

Ten additional stories date from the 1960s through the twenty-first century, ranging in their settings from Canada to New Mexico. Selections include Leslie Marmon Silko's "The Man to Send Rain Clouds," "Crow's Sun" by Duane Niatum, "Beading Lesson" by Beth H. Piatote, Sherman Alexie's "War Dances," and other tales that explore cultural borders and intersections, dramatizing the ways in which people discover their own heritage as well as the wider world.