Native American Short Stories

doi:10.1017/9781009292863.017

Chapter 12 - Native American Short Stories

from Part III - People and Places

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 May 2023

Hertha D. Sweet Wong

Edited by

Michael J. Collins and

Gavin Jones

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Michael J. Collins: Affiliation:
King's College London
Gavin Jones: Affiliation:
Stanford University

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Summary

This chapter traces a history of Native American short stories, from oral narratives to written short stories infused with retellings of Indigenous oral tales reflecting Native values: close relationships with language, land, human and non-human communities, ancestors, and the sacred. Rather than focus on defining the short story as a genre, Native writers tend to focus on story itself, especially the centrality, power, and life-shaping capacities of story. The earliest short stories were embedded in autobiographies, ethnographies, sermons, etc., but became more standalone stories over time. The long tradition of stories in a primarily realist mode has been joined by speculative fiction, science fiction, horror stories, children’s stories, Young Adult stories, and graphic narratives. Native short stories, including interlinked story cycles, critique settler-colonialism, document historical trauma, present Indigenous alternatives to imposed historical narratives, and offer new possibilities for Native continuance.

Keywords

Native American indigenous oral narrative myth storytelling healing Trickster settler colonialism story cycle

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Companion to the American Short Story , pp. 191 - 205

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009292863.017 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2023

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