Spider Woman's Granddaughters: Traditional Tales and Contemporary Writing by Native American Women - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 044990508X ISBN 13: 9780449905081

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1990

Synopsis

"Impressive....Haunting....Enchanting...Every story in the book, which covers nearly a century of tradition, is interesting, written with intelligent passion."
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Native American scholar, literary critic, poet, and novelist Paula Gunn Allen, who is herself a Laguna Pueblo-Sioux Indian, became increasingly aware in her academic career that the writings of Native Americans, especially women, have been marginalized by the Western literary canon. Allen set out to understand why this was so and, more importantly, to remedy the situation. The result is this powerful collection of traditional tales, biographical writings, and contemporary short stories, many by the most accomplished Native American women writing today, including: Louise Erdrich, Mary TallMountain, Linda Hogan, and many others.

About this title

About the Author:

Paula Gunn Allen (1939–2008) was a professor of Native American studies/ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She was the author of Skins and Bones, WYRDS, The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions, and The Woman Who Owned the Shadows.

From Publishers Weekly:

These 24 compelling and bleakly evocative narratives compiled by Allen, a professor of Native American studies at the University of California, all stress the theme of loss: loss of identity, loss of culture, loss of personal meaning. By juxtaposing traditional stories with contemporary tales, Allen allows readers to see how the same themes, values and perceptions have endured through the centuries, "testaments to cultural persistence, to a vision and a spiritual reality that will not die." Echoes of the traditional "Oshkikwe's Baby," about an old witch who steals babies, can be found in two stories. In Louise Erdrich's "American Horse," a white social worker separates a boy from his mother for his own "good," to the anguish of mother and son. In "As It Was in the Beginning," by E. Pauline Johnson, a preacher takes a girl away from her family to attend a mission school; the tale is a powerful indictment of the hypocrisy of the "Christian" white culture in dealing with native Americans. The importance of storytelling in keeping the Pawnee culture alive is beautifully conveyed in Anna Lee Walter's "The Warriors," in which their alcoholic uncle teaches two sisters that they must struggle to find beauty in the midst of squalor and poverty--"For beauty is why we live," he says. Allen's somewhat patronizing attitude toward her non-Native audience--in her introduction and editorial notes--is sometimes intrusive, but should not detract from the poignant impact of these stories.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 044990508X
• ISBN 13: 9780449905081
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288
• Editor: Paula Gunn Allen