Native American Fiction by David Treuer

Native American Fiction by David Treuer

An entirely new approach to reading, understanding, and enjoying Native American fiction

This book has been written with the narrow conviction that if Native American literature is worth thinking about at all, it is worth thinking about as literature. The vast majority of thought that has been poured out onto Native American literature has puddled, for the most part, on how the texts are positioned in relation to history or culture.

Rather than create a comprehensive cultural and historical genealogy for Native American literature, David Treuer investigates a selection of the most important Native American novels and, with a novelist's eye and a critic's mind, examines the intricate process of understanding literature on its own terms.

Native American Fiction: A User's Manual is speculative, witty, engaging, and written for the inquisitive reader. These essays--on Sherman Alexie, Forrest Carter, James Fenimore Cooper, Louise Erdrich, Leslie Marmon Silko, and James Welch--are rallying cries for the need to read literature as literature and, ultimately, reassert the importance and primacy of the word.

David Treuer is an Ojibwe from Minnesota's Leech Lake Reservation. He has written for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Esquire, Slate, and The Washington Post, among others, and has four previous novels, the most recent of which is Prudence. He has also written for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Esquire, Slate, and The Washington Post. He is a Ph.D. holder. at the University of Southern California, where he teaches literature and creative writing.