Abstract
This paper is a personalized essay that looks critically at some of the stories in Sherman Alexie’s story collection, “The Lone Tanger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.” Many of the stories play with the idea of history, myth, legend, and fiction in the lives of present-day Native communities in the northwestern United States. The stories also confront, rather directly, the U.S. indigenous people’s history of genocide, displacement, and cultural dispossession. I find what Alexie has to say about the role of storytelling in recovering from this history of displacement particularly interesting as a black woman teaching these stories to students of color. I believe the stories offer themselves as a model for how to recover from personal and family trauma.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
"Native American", " African American", " Oral Traditions", " Sherman Alexie", " Storytelling"
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