Dreams of fiery stars : the transformations of Native American fiction / Catherine Rainwater.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rainwater, Catherine, 1953-

Series:

Penn studies in contemporary American fiction.

Penn studies in contemporary American fiction

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American fiction--Indian authors--History and criticism.

American fiction.

American fiction--20th century--History and criticism.

Indians of North America--Intellectual life.

Indians of North America.

Indians in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (241 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c1999.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Book for 1999Since the 1968 publication of N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn, a new generation of Native American storytellers has chosen writing over oral traditions. While their works have found an audience by observing many of the conventions of the mainstream novel, Native American written narrative has emerged as something distinct from the postmodern novel with which it is often compared.In Dreams of Fiery Stars, Catherine Rainwater examines the novels of writers such as Momaday, Linda Hogan, Leslie Marmon Silko, Gerald Vizenor, and Louise Erdrich and contends that the very act of writing narrative imposes constraints upon these authors that are foreign to Native American tradition. Their works amount to a break with—and a transformation of—American Indian storytelling.The book focuses on the agenda of social and cultural regeneration encoded in contemporary Native American narrative, and addresses key questions about how these works achieve their overtly stated political and revisionary aims. Rainwater explores the ways in which the writers "create" readers who understand the connection between storytelling and personal and social transformation; considers how contemporary Native American narrative rewrites Western notions of space and time; examines the existence of intertextual connections between Native American works; and looks at the vital role of Native American literature in mainstream society today.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Prologue. A Universe Perfused with Signs

Chapter One. Acts of Deliverance: Narration and Power

Chapter Two. Imagining the Stories: Narrativity and Solidarity

Chapter Three. Re-Signing the Self: Models of Identity and Community

Chapter Four. They All Sang as One: Refiguring Space-Time

Chapter Five. All the Stories Fit Together: Intertextual Medicine Bundles and Twins

Epilogue. All We Have Are Stories: Semiosis and Regeneration

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [197]-211) and index.

ISBN:

9786613210685

9781283210683

1283210681

9780812200201

0812200209

OCLC:

759037217