“In 1969, N. Scott Momaday’s House Made of Dawn won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, helping usher in the Native American Renaissance. It was his first novel and second published book, after the folkloric The Journey of Tai-me (1967). The novel’s publication launched him into the public sphere. Momaday has since gone on to have a glittering career, with countless awards and honorary degrees, making great strides in establishing the university field of Indian Studies, and extending American literature overseas, most notably into Russia. … I want to reflect on House Made of Dawn and how it can help us understand our current linguistic paradoxes. To my mind, it remains essential reading for understanding the political and cultural paradigms of the American West and settler colonies more generally. House Made of Dawn focuses on the lives of individuals, their place in a wider community, and, in one way of telling, about how to narrate a modern experience for Indigenous people. The novel tells the story of being inside and outside two worlds that share the same location, that often run in parallel, but sometimes against one another. Although magical realism emerged around the same time as Momaday’s novel, Momaday presents a different narrative path than the ‘magical realism’ that was projected onto every work from outside the West after the Latin American magical realist boom of Gabriel Garcia Marquez et al. This rather flat sense of magical realism is still often applied to writers as diverse as Ben Okri, Alexis Wright, and Salman Rushdie. Momaday’s style, however, paved a different path entirely. House Made of Dawn is a work of worldly literature, and an opportunity to think through more creative forms of the novel today. Not only is there a whole Kiowa world that informs his novel, but also a distinct literary style, an indigenous politics, and a spiritual consciousness — we might call his style Momadayan. Momadayan is syncretic, connected, rich. It thinks through deep time and linguistic history. House Made of Dawn is the work of an individual who speaks not only on behalf of, but with other people. …”
LA Review: N. Scott Momaday’s House Made of Dawn and Settler Colonial Language
W – House Made of Dawn, W – N. Scott Momaday
amazon
Bill Davis
-
Join 365 other subscribers
Tags
- 1968 DNC
- Agent Orange
- Alan Watts
- Allen Ginsberg
- Angela Davis
- ARVN
- Berlin Wall
- Bill Ayers
- Bill Graham
- Black Power
- Bob Dylan
- Books
- Burroughs
- Cambodia
- Che
- Chicago Eight
- Chicano
- CIA
- Civil Rights Mov.
- Computing
- CORE
- Counterculture
- Cronkite
- Cuban Revolution
- Czech
- Dick Gregory
- Documentary
- Draft board
- Ed Sanders
- Eldridge Cleaver
- Environmental
- Feminist
- Freedom Summer
- Free Speech Mov.
- Gonzo journalism
- Grateful Dead
- Haight-Ashbury
- Hanoi
- Happenings
- Harlem
- Henry Kissinger
- Hippie
- Ho Chi Minh
- Ho Chi Minh Trail
- Huey P. Newton
- Hunter S. Thompson
- Italy
- Jack Kerouac
- James Baldwin
- Jazz
- Jerry Rubin
- Jesse Jackson
- John Kennedy
- Ken Kesey
- LA Boom
- Laos
- LSD
- Lyn. Johnson
- Malcolm X
- Marijuana
- Merry Pranksters
- Mexico
- Michael Herr
- MLKJr.
- Movie
- Music
- My Lai
- Napalm
- Newspaper
- Nixon
- Noam Chomsky
- No Nukes
- NVA
- Pacifist
- Paris
- Philip Berrigan
- Phil Ochs
- Poetry
- Poverty
- Project Mercury
- R. McNamara
- Race Riots
- Religion
- Rob. Kennedy
- Rolling Stones
- Saigon
- SCLC
- SDS
- SNCC
- Sports
- Street theater
- Tet 1968
- The Beatles
- The Fugs
- Timothy Leary
- Tom Hayden
- TV
- Viet Cong
- Vietnam War
- Weather Underground
-
Recent Posts
- Paperwork: A Brief History of Artists’ Scrapbooks
- A Different Tuning: Jean Follain
- Mad scientists of Stanisław Lem
- The Impressions – This Is My Country (1968)
- Patti Smith Makes a Pilgrimage to French Guiana in This Exclusive Excerpt From Her New Memoir
- Seven dirty words
- Vittorio De Sica – Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963)
- History of compiler construction
- Found in an NYC Junk Shop: Forgotten Postcards between Two Haiku Masters
- Journeys of Frodo – Barbara Strachey
Categories
- 1968 DNC
- Agent Orange
- Alan Watts
- Allen Ginsberg
- Angela Davis
- ARVN
- Beach Boys
- Berlin Wall
- Bill Ayers
- Bill Graham
- Bill Moyers
- Black Power
- Bob Dylan
- Bobby Seale
- Books
- Burroughs
- Cambodia
- Che
- Chicago Eight
- Chicano
- CIA
- Civil Rights Mov.
- Computing
- CORE
- Counterculture
- Cronkite
- Cuban Revolution
- Czech
- Dick Gregory
- Documentary
- Draft board
- Ed Sanders
- Eldridge Cleaver
- Environmental
- Feminist
- Free Speech Mov.
- Freedom Summer
- Gonzo journalism
- Grateful Dead
- Haight-Ashbury
- Hanoi
- Happenings
- Harlem
- Henry Kissinger
- Hippie
- Ho Chi Minh
- Ho Chi Minh Trail
- Huey P. Newton
- Hunter S. Thompson
- Italy
- Jack Kerouac
- James Baldwin
- Jazz
- Jerry Rubin
- Jesse Jackson
- John Kennedy
- Ken Kesey
- LA Boom
- Laos
- LSD
- Lyn. Johnson
- Malcolm X
- Mao
- Marijuana
- Merry Pranksters
- Mexico
- Michael Herr
- MLKJr.
- Movie
- Music
- My Lai
- Napalm
- Newspaper
- Nixon
- No Nukes
- Noam Chomsky
- NVA
- Pacifist
- Paris
- Paris Peace Accords
- Paul Goodman
- Peace talks
- Phil Ochs
- Philip Berrigan
- Poetry
- Poverty
- Project Mercury
- R. McNamara
- Race Riots
- Religion
- Richard Brautigan
- Rob. Kennedy
- Rolling Stones
- Saigon
- SCLC
- SDS
- SNCC
- Sports
- Street theater
- Tet 1968
- The Beatles
- The Fugs
- Timothy Leary
- Tom Hayden
- TV
- United Nations
- Ursula K. Le Guin
- Viet Cong
- Vietnam War
- Watergate scandal
- Weather Underground
Archives
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- Follow 1960s: Days of Rage on WordPress.com
Categories
Allen Ginsberg Black Power Bob Dylan Books Burroughs CIA Civil Rights Mov. Counterculture Cuban Revolution Documentary Draft board Feminist Happenings Henry Kissinger Hippie Jazz John Kennedy LSD Lyn. Johnson Marijuana MLKJr. Movie Music Newspaper Nixon Pacifist Paris Poetry R. McNamara Religion Rob. Kennedy SDS Street theater Viet Cong Vietnam WarGravatar
Archives
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017