Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to the American Short Story
- The Cambridge Companion to the American Short Story
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Contexts
- Part II Histories
- Part III People and Places
- Chapter 12 Native American Short Stories
- Chapter 13 African American Short Fiction
- Chapter 14 Little Postage Stamps
- Chapter 15 Regional Stories and the Environmental Imagination
- Chapter 16 Concrete Illuminations
- Part IV Theories
- Notes
- Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions to…
- References
Chapter 12 - Native American Short Stories
from Part III - People and Places
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 May 2023
Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to the American Short Story
- The Cambridge Companion to the American Short Story
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Chronology
- Introduction
- Part I Contexts
- Part II Histories
- Part III People and Places
- Chapter 12 Native American Short Stories
- Chapter 13 African American Short Fiction
- Chapter 14 Little Postage Stamps
- Chapter 15 Regional Stories and the Environmental Imagination
- Chapter 16 Concrete Illuminations
- Part IV Theories
- Notes
- Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions to…
- References
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.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to the American Short Story , pp. 191 - 205Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023
References
Works Cited
Anderson, Eric Gary. 2020. “Native American Horror, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction,” in The Cambridge History of Native American Literature. Ed. Taylor, Melanie Benson, 431–446. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brant, Beth. 1984. “Introduction,” in A Gathering of Spirit: A Collection by North American Indian Women. Ed. Brant, Beth, 8–11. New York: Firebrand Books.Google Scholar
Bruchac, Joseph 1994. “Introduction,” in Returning the Gift: Poetry and Prose from the First North American Native Writers’ Festival. Ed. Bruchac, Joseph, xvii–xxix. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Charters, Ann, ed. 2003. The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s.Google Scholar
Erdrich, Louise. 1985. “Where I Ought to Be: A Writer’s Sense of Place,” New York Times Book Review, July 28: 23–24.Google Scholar
Glancy, Diane. 1993. Firesticks: A Collection of Stories. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Glancy, Diane. 1999. The Voice That Was in Travel: Stories. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Goddy, Krystyna Poray. 2021. “Lifting Up Native American Voices,” Publishers Weekly, February 15: 28–29.Google Scholar
Howe, LeAnne. 1999. “Tribalography: The Power of Native Stories,” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism. 14.1 (Fall): 117–125.Google Scholar
Howe, LeAnne. 2002. “The Story of America: A Tribalography,” in Clearing the Path, Theorizing the Past in Native American Studies. Ed. Shoemaker, Nancy, 29–50. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Howe, LeAnne. 2014. “Embodied Tribalography: Mound Building, Ball Games, and Native Endurance in the Southeast,” Studies in American Indian Literatures. 26.2: 75–93.Google Scholar
Ingram, Forrest L. 1971. Representative Short Story Cycles of the Twentieth Century: Studies in a Literary Genre. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, E. Pauline. 2014 [1893]. “A Red Girl’s Reasoning,” in Great Short Stories by Contemporary Native American Writers. Ed. Blaisdell, Bob, 1–16. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.Google Scholar
Jones, Stephen Graham. 2009. “How Billy Hanson Destroyed the Planet Earth, and Everyone on It,” Juked, April 1. http://juked.com/2009/04/billyhanson.asp.Google Scholar
Jones, Stephen Graham. 2014. “Chapter Six,” Tor, June 11. www.Tor.com/2014/06/11/chapter-six-stephen-graham-jones/.Google Scholar
Justice, Daniel Heath. 2018. Why Indigenous Literatures Matter. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.Google Scholar
King, Thomas. 2005. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
La Pensée, Elizabeth and Alvitre, Weshoyot, eds. 2017. Deer Woman: An Anthology. Albuquerque, NM: Native Realities.Google Scholar
Lesley, Craig, ed. 1991. Talking Leaves: Contemporary Native American Short Stories. New York: Dell Publishing.Google Scholar
Lohafer, Susan and Clarey, JoEllyn, eds. 1989. Short Story Theory at a Crossroads. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.Google Scholar
Luscher, Robert M. 1989. “The Short Story Sequence: An Open Book,” in Short Story Theory at a Crossroads. Eds. Lohafer, Susan and Clarey, JoEllyn, 148–167. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.Google Scholar
McNickle, D’Arcy. 2014 [1936]. “Train Time,” in Great Short Stories by Contemporary Native American Writers. Ed. Blaisdell, Bob, 40–44. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.Google Scholar
Mackenthun, Gesa. 2020. “Unsettling Colonial Temporalities: Oral Traditions and Indigenous Literature,” in The Cambridge History of Native American Literature. Ed. Taylor, Melanie Benson, 33–50. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Momaday, N. Scott. 1969. The Way to Rainy Mountain. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Momaday, N. Scott. 1979. “The Man Made of Words,” in The Remembered Earth: An Anthology of Contemporary Native American Literature. Ed. Hobson, Geary, 162–173. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar
Mourning, Dove (Humishuma). 1990 [1934]. Coyote Stories. Ed. Guie, Heister Dean. Illustrated by McWhorter, L. V. (Old Wolf). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
O’Connor, Frank. 1963. The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story. Cleveland, OH: World Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Ortiz, Simon. 1999. Men on the Moon: Collected Short Stories. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Oskison, John M. 2014 [1925]. “The Singing Bird,” in Great Short Stories by Contemporary Native American Writers. Ed. Blaisdell, Bob, 25–39. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.Google Scholar
Smith, Cynthia Leitich, ed. 2021. Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids. New York: Heartdrum.Google Scholar
Stratton, Billy J. and Washburn, Frances. 2008. “The Peoplehood Matrix: A New Theory of American Indian Literature,” Wicazo Sa Review 18.8 (Spring): 51–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Melanie Benson. 2020. “Introduction: What Was Native American Literature?,” in The Cambridge History of Native American Literature. Ed. Taylor, Melanie Benson, 1–14. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Vizenor, Gerald. 1981. Earth Divers: Tribal Narratives of Mixed Descent. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Zitkála-Šá, . 2014 [1901]. “The Soft-Hearted Sioux,” in Great Short Stories by Contemporary Native American Writers. Ed. Blaisdell, Bob, 17–24. New York: Dover Publications, Inc.Google Scholar