Bad Cree

Indigenous and First Nations writing has a long and storied tradition within American and Canadian literature. Indigenous storytelling has existed in oral form since the first days of Indigenous settlement in the Americas, and there are several notable writers whose work was published in the 19th and early 20th centuries, including Zitkala-Sa (American Indian Stories) and John Joseph Matthews. However, N. Scott Momaday’s 1969 Pulitzer Prize for the novel House Made of Dawn (1968) dates to the first wave of Indigenous literature to achieve widespread popularity. This first wave of Indigenous-authored texts represents the entrance of Indigenous literature into the mainstream, often termed “The Native American Renaissance.” The term Indigenous is now used in place of Native American, but in the 1960s and 1970s, Native American was more commonly used, and the movement’s title still reflects that nomenclature. Its authors included N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko (Ceremony, “Yellow Woman”) James Welch (Winter in the Blood, Fool’s Crow) Gerald Vizenor, Joy Harjo (Crazy Brave, “Perhaps the World Ends Here”), and many others. During the 1980s and 1990s, Louise Erdrich (Love Medicine, The Round House), Paula Gunn Allen (Spider Woman’s Granddaughters), Linda Hogan (Mean Spirit), and Sherman Alexie (Reservation Blues, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian) also rose to prominence. Indigeneity and Indigenous identity development and the reclamation of and reconnection to traditional cultural beliefs are common themes in works associated with the Native American Renaissance, as is the experience of Indigenous soldiers during the Korean and Vietnam wars.

In more recent years, a new wave of authors has emerged. The thematic focus of Indigenous fiction has shifted somewhat, and now it is more common to see authors engage with issues that Indigenous individuals and communities face during contemporary times. Generational (or inherited) trauma is a key focal point in the work of authors such as Oscar Hokeah (Calling for a Blanket Dance), Tommy Orange (Wandering Stars), David Heska Wanbli Weiden, and others. The lasting impact of residential schools is another common theme, and authors such as Amanda Peters depict the violence that these state and church-run institutions inflicted upon Indigenous children. The Land Back movement is another theme that runs through many contemporary texts, as is the largely unaddressed epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW). These issues are at the forefront of contemporary public discourse surrounding Indigenous lives and experiences, and they differentiate contemporary Indigenous literature from the Native American Renaissance with their focus on violence, colonialism, the residential school system, and both individual and collective trauma.

In addition to realistic fiction that engages with these issues, there is a burgeoning Indigenous horror subgenre that seeks to address the impact of trauma on Indigenous individuals and their communities using supernatural elements and traditional horror tropes. Nick Medina’s novels, Sisters of the Lost Nation (2023) and Indian Burial Ground (2024), are two noteworthy exemplars as are Stephen Graham Jones’s Indian Lake Trilogy and standalone novel, The Only Good Indians (2020). Waubegshig Rice’s novels, Moon of the Crusted Snow (2018) and Moon of the Turning Leaves (2023), combine horror with a post-apocalyptic setting to explore the lasting impact of colonial violence on First Nations communities and the roots of generational trauma within histories of displacement and genocide. There are many other examples of recent Indigenous horror books, and these texts share an interest in using violent language and imagery to spark discussions about the violence against Indigenous peoples in the Americas during the centuries since colonization.