Voice of the Turtle: American Indian Literature 1900-1970 - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345395050 ISBN 13: 9780345395054

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1995

Synopsis

"Paula Gunn Allen has been at the heart of a literary movement that has made Native American literature a part of the canon.... Voice of the Turtle is a collection of stories that will transform readers, offering an opportunity to understand the diverse literary traditions of American native peoples."
--Clifford Trafzer
Editor of Earth Song, Sky Spirit
Meticulously edited by Paula Gunn Allen, Voice of the Turtle presents an unprecedented, comprehensive collection of Native American narrative literature from its first publication in 1900 through 1970. In forms as varied as oral recitation, autobiography, and fiction, this anthology gives readers a profound sense of the multiplicity of Native traditions and their ritual-centered worldview. Inside you'll discover:
A Red Girl's Reasoning by E. Pauline Johnson
Coyote Juggles His Eyes by Mourning Dove
Train Time by D'Arcy McNickle
"First Days at Carlisle" from My People, the Sioux by Luther Standing Bear
The Widespread Enigma Concerning Blue-Star Woman by Zitkala-Sa
"The Longhair" from House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
With passionate eloquence and fiery boldness, Voice of the Turtle displays the richness, depth, and range of Native American literature during a century when Native culture was fighting--triumphantly, in the long run--for breath and life.
"Voice of the Turtle alchemizes the spirit of spoken words into magical icons of printed literature."
--Kenneth Lincoln
American Indian Studies, UCLA
"An invaluable gap-filler in the canon of American literature."
--Booklist
"Provocative...Comprehensive...An accessible, varied collection."
--Boston Sunday Herald

About this title

From the Publisher:

A landmark survey of American Indian literature in America, VOICE OF THE TURTLE brings together the works of seventeen authors--E. Pauline Johnson, Mourning Dove, Luther Standing Bear, Roger Black Elk, and a host of others--to give readers a historical overview of the richness, depth, and range of Native literature in the first part of this century. Allen shows us Native writing from its earliest days, drawing her selections from a wealth of genres: memoirs, oral histories, short stories, novels. With this volume and her other collection, SONG OF THE TURTLE, Allen is creating the canon of the future.

This volume covers works written from the turn of the century to the 1970's.

From Publishers Weekly:

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0345395050
• ISBN 13: 9780345395054
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336
• Editor: Allen Paula Gunn