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Chapter 12 - Native American Short Stories

from Part III - People and Places

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2023

Michael J. Collins
Affiliation:
King's College London
Gavin Jones
Affiliation:
Stanford University
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Summary

This chapter traces a history of Native American short stories, from oral narratives to written short stories infused with retellings of Indigenous oral tales reflecting Native values: close relationships with language, land, human and non-human communities, ancestors, and the sacred. Rather than focus on defining the short story as a genre, Native writers tend to focus on story itself, especially the centrality, power, and life-shaping capacities of story. The earliest short stories were embedded in autobiographies, ethnographies, sermons, etc., but became more standalone stories over time. The long tradition of stories in a primarily realist mode has been joined by speculative fiction, science fiction, horror stories, children’s stories, Young Adult stories, and graphic narratives. Native short stories, including interlinked story cycles, critique settler-colonialism, document historical trauma, present Indigenous alternatives to imposed historical narratives, and offer new possibilities for Native continuance.

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Chapter
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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References

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