American Indian Stories
Author: ZITKALA-SA
ISBN: 9781984854216
Publisher: RANDOM HOUSE US
Year first published: 21 May 2019
Pages: 160
Format: Paperback / softback
A groundbreaking Lakota author and activist chronicles her refusal to assimilate into 19th century white society and her mission to preserve her culture.
A groundbreaking Dakota author and activist chronicles her refusal to assimilate into nineteenth-century white society and her mission to preserve her culture-with an introduction by Layli Long Soldier, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award forWhereas
Bright and carefree, Zitkala-Sa grows up on the Yankton Sioux reservation in South Dakota with her mother until Quaker missionaries arrive, offering the reservation's children a free education. The catch: They must leave their parents behind and travel to Indiana. Curious about the world beyond the reservation, Zitkala-Sa begs her mother to let her go-and her mother, aware of the advantages that an education offers, reluctantly agrees.
But the missionary school is not the adventure that Zitkala-Sa expected: The school is a strict one, her long hair is cut short, and only English is spoken. She encounters racism and ridicule. Slowly, Zitkala-Sa adapts to her environment-excelling at her studies, winning prizes for essay-writing and oration. But the price of success is estrangement from her cultural roots-and is it one she is willing to pay?
Combining Zitkala-Sa's childhood memories, her short stories, and her poetry, American Indian Stories is the origin story of an activist in the making, a remarkable woman whose extraordinary career deserves wider recognition.
The Modern LibraryTorchbearersseries features women who wrote on their own terms, with boldness, creativity, and a spirit of resistance.
ISBN: 9781984854216
Publisher: RANDOM HOUSE US
Year first published: 21 May 2019
Pages: 160
Format: Paperback / softback
A groundbreaking Lakota author and activist chronicles her refusal to assimilate into 19th century white society and her mission to preserve her culture.
A groundbreaking Dakota author and activist chronicles her refusal to assimilate into nineteenth-century white society and her mission to preserve her culture-with an introduction by Layli Long Soldier, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award forWhereas
Bright and carefree, Zitkala-Sa grows up on the Yankton Sioux reservation in South Dakota with her mother until Quaker missionaries arrive, offering the reservation's children a free education. The catch: They must leave their parents behind and travel to Indiana. Curious about the world beyond the reservation, Zitkala-Sa begs her mother to let her go-and her mother, aware of the advantages that an education offers, reluctantly agrees.
But the missionary school is not the adventure that Zitkala-Sa expected: The school is a strict one, her long hair is cut short, and only English is spoken. She encounters racism and ridicule. Slowly, Zitkala-Sa adapts to her environment-excelling at her studies, winning prizes for essay-writing and oration. But the price of success is estrangement from her cultural roots-and is it one she is willing to pay?
Combining Zitkala-Sa's childhood memories, her short stories, and her poetry, American Indian Stories is the origin story of an activist in the making, a remarkable woman whose extraordinary career deserves wider recognition.
The Modern LibraryTorchbearersseries features women who wrote on their own terms, with boldness, creativity, and a spirit of resistance.
