Spider Woman's granddaughters : traditional tales and contemporary writing by Native American women /

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"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.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

What distinguishes this collection of stories by contemporary Native American women is Allen's meticulous scholarship; in her fine analytical headnotes, she explains how writers like Silko, Erdrich, and Hogan draw images, characters, and themes from traditional stories. Arranged thematically (``The Warriors,'' The Casualties''), the text shows that Native Americans ``write out of tribal traditions and into them'' and that Native women writers are ``strong, doubting, curious, inventive, frightened, brave, confused, and very contemporary human beings.'' A glossary and a typically trenchant introductory essay make Allen's latest work a treasure for scholars and general readers alike. Highly recommended.-- Rhoda Carroll, Vermont Coll., Montpelier (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

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. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

According to the Cherokee, Grandmother Spider brought the light of intelligence and experience to the people. In this collection, Allen brings the stories of Indian women's experiences to the reader, accounts that she calls "women's war stories" because they demonstrate the turmoil through which American Indian women have lived and survived. The entries range from traditional stories of Owl-woman and Yellow Woman to contemporary accounts of women on reservations and in urban settings. Allen, in an informative introduction, refers to "told-to-people" stories and "told-to-the-page" stories, the oral and written modes of narrative that intertwine throughout the collection. She provides a case study in her presentation of three traditional Pueblo Yellow Woman stories and then includes "Yellow Woman," a contemporary story by Laguna writer Leslie Marmon Silko. The connections between oral and written material mirror the continuity that exists through time. In the first story, Pretty Shield, a Crow woman, says "the one who tells the stories rules the world," and her interpretation of the power of storytelling is demonstrated in this anthology. The collection includes early writers such as Zitkala-Sa and E. Pauline Johnson as well as contemporary novelists and poets such as Louise Erdrich, Mary TallMountain, and Linda Hogan. Allen is a poet and novelist as well as a literary critic whose essays in The Sacred Hoop (CH, Sep '86), which she also edited, are important contributions to the ongoing scholarship about American Indian women. All libraries. -G. M. Bataille, Arizona State University

Booklist Review

Great tales from the oral tradition and by outstanding contemporary writers.