Nativeamericanlit.com Website Review

Native American Renaissance, a controversial term, is frequently used to describe the explosion of literature created after the 1960's by Native American writers of fiction. Momaday's House Made of Dawn, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1969, has been given the credit for inspiring the new generation of writers. The authors included in this movement include: Paula Gunn Allen; Barney Bush; Louise Erdrich; Joy Harjo; N. Scott Momaday; Duane Niatum; Nila northSun; Simon J. Ortiz; Leslie Marmon Silko; Gerald Vizenor; and James Welch. We will provide an in-depth an*lysis of most of This first generation of novels which have become the clas*ics of the American Indian Literary Renaissance-- House Made of Dawn, Winter in the Blood, Ceremony, Love Medicine --generally present a bleak picture of life in Indian Country. Although the authors treat their subjects with humor and compas*ion, and the reader gets a full sense of the characters' essential humanity, for the most part the protagonists are poor, shiftless, heavy-drinking drifters who are MOMADAY'S HOUSE MADE OF DAWN Momaday For instance, Abel in House Made of Dawn is lost and alcoholic after returning from World War II. He serves eight years for killing an albino Indian before finally adjusting to life in his tribe. Gerry Nanabush, if not the protagonist of Love Medicine then certainly the most dramatic character, makes a specialty of escaping from prison. The nameless hero of Winter in the Blood avoids jail and is less poor than broke, but he has little aim in life; he drifts from one bar to another, picking up women, getting beaten up. Tayo, in Ceremony, is a lost bibulous soul who, with the help of a Navajo healer, eventually pulls his life together. In the past five years, with what might be called the second generation of novels, Indian fiction features middle-clas* protagonists, Indians in the professions. Scott Momaday's Ancient Child is about a Kiowa painter who exhibits in galleries