Here First: Autobiographical Essays by Native American Writers

Jacket Description/Flap: Here First is an important new collection of essays by Native American writers compiled by Arnold Krupat and Brian Swann, the editors of I Tell You Now: Autobiographical Essays by Native American Writers. In Here First, authors such as Sherman Alexie, Greg Sarris, and Elizabeth Woody tell the stories of their lives and their art. Each essay demonstrates the breadth of experience of twenty-seven individuals united in the creative expression of a Native American heritage. Each has a different relation to that heritage, and in describing it through personal and family history, with verse and in anecdotes, the writers give a strong image of the different cultures that have shaped them. This is living history and the kind of collective memoir that makes for fascinating and rewarding reading--one of the most vivid and diverse portraits of Native American culture available today. Biographical Note: Arnold Krupat is the author of several books, including The Turn to the Native: Studies in Criticism & Culture and the novel Woodsmen, or Thoreau and the Indians. He teaches at Sarah Lawrence College. Brian Swann has published a number of collections of poetry and fiction, including Wearing the Morning Star: Native American Song-Poems and Coming to Light: Contemporary Translations of the Native Literatures of North America. He teaches at the Cooper Union in New York City. Publisher Marketing: Twenty-seven Native American writers describe their lives in relation to their art and to their families in a collection demonstrating the importance of storytelling in their heritage and the complexity of their experience. Review Citations:

Booklist 05/15/2000 pg. 1722 (EAN 9780375751387, Paperback)

Library Journal 06/01/2000 pg. 174 (EAN 9780375751387, Paperback)

Contributor Bio:  Krupat, Arnold Arnold Krupat (Ph. D. Columbia) is Professor of Literature at Sarah Lawrence College. He is the author of, among other books, Ethnocriticism: Ethnography, History, Literature; Red Matters: Native American Studies; and, most recently, All That Remains: Varieties of Indigenous Expression (2009). He is the editor of a number of anthologies, including Native American Autobiography: An Anthology and New Voices in Native American Literary Criticism. With Brian Swann, he edited Here First: Autobiographical Essays by Native American Writers, which won the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers Award for best book of nonfiction prose in 2001. Contributor Bio:  Swann, Brian Brian Swann is on the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. His many works include "Coming to Light: Contemporary Translations of the Native Literatures of North America."