Words on a Page

This essay was presented at the 'Framing the Self: Anxieties of Identity in Literature' conference, sponsored by the Centre of Studies in Literature at the University of Portsmouth, 21st May.  Some of the material included has been adapted from earlier postings. The Quest for Identity The quest for identity is the overriding theme in the work of almost all Native writers. Four centuries of colonisation, during which children, mixed and full-blood, were taken from their homes and ‘civilised’ have scoured away nearly all remnants of traditional Indian identity. Sent to boarding schools such as that in Carlisle, Pennsylvania whose motto was ‘Kill the Indian, Save the man’, these children were no longer permitted to speak their own languages, wear their own clothes, or pray to their own gods. Imperfectly assimilated, they lost their voices and their histories, and found themselves balanced between two opposing worlds: the old world where they no longer fully belonged, and the...

It is often only at the end of a writer’s career that it becomes possible to see how their work has developed, how the focus has narrowed or expanded, how the writer’s thought process has shifted.  In the sixteen years since Sherman Alexie won the PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Book of Fiction for the ground-breaking and controversial short story collection Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993), he has published a further seventeen books including poetry, novels and short fiction.  Thanks to this rapidly-expanding catalogue, we are able to witness Alexie’s development in almost real time. From the very start, Alexie has explored the question of what it is to be ‘Indian’ in contemporary America, both on and off the Spokane Reservation.  Ten Little Indians (2003), however, began to shift away from the antagonistic cultural tribalism of earlier books.  Ethnicity was no longer the controlling force in the lives of his characters.  They were people ...

Introduction As part of my research project, I am writing a novel set in the American West, with historical and contemporary narratives. From the outset, I have had two major concerns: how to access an accurate and authentic historical voice; and how to represent a Native American character in a culturally authentic manner. This paper will provide a context for those questions and look at the ways in which I have addressed them in my research. The Importance of Authenticity in Western American Literature No other region-based literature, and certainly no other genre is as concerned with the issue of authenticity as is literature of the American West. Even historical fiction, the form most closely associated with representations of actual people and factual events is at ease with supposition and probability. Western fiction, however, is often seen to regard its subject as if it were a holy relic, to be revered and scrutinized, but not to be tampered with in any way. Since Owen Wis...