Momaday, Vizenor, Armstrong: Conversations on American Indian Writing

Title: Momaday, Vizenor, Armstrong: Conversations on American Indian Writing
Author: Hartwig Isernhagen
ISBN: 9780806131207
Publisher: Univ of Oklahoma Pr
Published: 1999
Binding: Hardcover
Language: English
Condition: Used: Very Good
Clean, unmarked copy with some edge wear. Good binding. Dust jacket included if issued with one. We ship in recyclable American-made mailers. 100% money-back guarantee on all orders.

Indigenous Studies 1513330

Publisher Description:
These interviews showcase three Native American writers in dialogue with a European critic who becomes their partner in exploring individual and tribal identity, cultural survival and exploitation, and writing techniques. From Hartwig Isernhagen's unique perspective, readers survey the growth of Native writing in the United States and Canada within the text of indigenous world literature.

N. Scott Momaday, founding father of contemporary Native American literature, employs the international idiom of modernism in the service of Native discourses, enhancing the prestige and visibility of American Indian culture while addressing the urgent questions of material and political life. Gerald Vizenor, the postmodern Trickster of literature, conveys his distrust of commodification and stereotypes and reacts by grounding his authority as a writer in processes (rather than products) of communication. Jeannette Armstrong, Okanagan storyteller and director of the En'owkin Centre and School of Writing in Penticton, British Columbia, addresses issues of translation -- from Native languages into English, from oral tradition into written text, from communal experience into individual expression.

All three writers responded to the same series of questions by their European interviewer. The dialogues show how three major figures assess the contribution of modernism, postmodernism, and the realist tradition to contemporary Native literature.