Leslie Marmon Silko

Silko takes readers along on her daily walks through the arroyos and ledges of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, weaving tales from both sides of her family's past into her observations, and using the turquoise stones that she finds on her walks to unite the strands of her stories.

Native American scholar, literary critic, poet, and novelist Paula Gunn Allen, who is herself a Laguna Pueblo-Sioux Indian, became increasingly aware in her academic career that the writings of Native Americans, especially women, have been marginalized by the Western literary canon. Allen set out to understand why this was so and, more importantly, to remedy the situation. The result is this powerful collection of traditional tales, biographical writings,...