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Books by Indigenous, Native American, and First Nation authors
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There There by Tommy OrangeA novel that grapples with the complex history and identity of Native Americans follows twelve characters, each of whom has private reasons for traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow.
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Black sun
by Rebecca Roanhorse
Xiala, a disgraced Teek who can calm waters or cause madness with her song, arrives and disrupts the holy city of Tova during the winter solstice in the first novel of a new trilogy. Original. 75,000 first printing.
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When Two Feathers fell from the sky
by Margaret Verble
After disaster strikes during one of her shows, Two Feathers, a young Cherokee horse-diver on loan to Glendale Park Zoo from a Wild West show, must get to the bottom of a mystery that spans centuries with the help of an eclectic cast of characters. 35,000 first printing.
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My heart is a chainsaw
by Stephen Graham Jones
Protected by horror movies—especially the ones where the masked killer seeks revenge on a world that wronged them—Jade Daniels, an angry, half-Indian outcast, pulls us into her dark mind when blood actually starts to spill into the waters of Indian lake. 100,000 first printing.
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The removed : a novel
by Brandon Hobson
"Steeped in Cherokee myths and history, a novel about a fractured family reckoning with the tragic death of their son long ago-from National Book Award finalist Brandon Hobson"
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Empire of Wild : A Novel by Cherie DimalineA story inspired by the Canadian Métis legend of the Rogarou finds a woman reconnecting with her heritage when her missing husband reappears in the form of a charismatic preacher who does not recognize her.
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Night of the living rez
by Morgan Talty
"Set in a Native community in Maine, Night of the Living Rez is a riveting debut collection about what it means to be Penobscot in the twenty-first century and what it means to live, to survive, and to persevere after tragedy. In twelve striking, luminescent stories, author Morgan Talty-with searing humor, abiding compassion, and deep insight-breathes life into tales of family and a community as they struggle with a painful past and an uncertain future. A boy unearths a jar that holds an old curse, whichsets into motion his family's unraveling; a man, while trying to swindle some pot from a dealer, discovers a friend passed out in the woods, his hair frozen into the snow; a grandmother suffering from Alzheimer's projects the past onto her grandson; and two friends, inspired by Antiques Roadshow, attempt to rob the tribal museum for valuable root clubs. A collection that examines the consequences and merits of inheritance, Night of the Living Rez is an unforgettable portrayal of an Indigenous community and marks the arrival of a standout talent in contemporary fiction"
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Woman of light : a novel
by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
In 1930s Denver, Luz "Little Light" Lopez, a tea leaf reader and laundress, begins having visions that transport her to her Indigenous homeland in the nearby Lost Territory where she must save her family stories from disappearing into oblivion
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Sacred Smokes : Stories by Theodore C. Van Alst"Growing up in a gang in the city can be dark. Growing up Native American in a gang in Chicago is a whole different story. This book takes a trip through that unexplored part of Indian Country, an intense journey that is full of surprises, shining a light on the interior lives of people whose intellectual and emotional concerns are often overlooked. This dark, compelling, occasionally inappropriate, and often hilarious linked story collection introduces a character who defies all stereotypes about urban life and Indians. He will be in readers' heads for a long time to come"
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House Made of Dawn by N. Scott MomadayA young Native American returning from World War II searches for his place on his old reservation and in urban society
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Love after the end : an anthology of Two-spirit & Indigiqueer speculative fiction
by Joshua Whitehead
"A bold and breathtaking anthology of queer Indigenous speculative fiction, edited by the author of Jonny Appleseed. This exciting and groundbreaking fiction anthology showcases a number of new and emerging 2SQ (Two-Spirit and queer) Indigenous writers from across Turtle Island. These visionary authors show how queer Indigenous communities can bloom and thrive through utopian narratives that detail the vivacity and strength of 2SQness throughout its plight in the maw of settler colonialism's histories"
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New Native kitchen : celebrating modern recipes of the American Indian
by Freddie Bitsoie
"From Freddie Bitsoie, the former executive chef at Mitsitam Native Foods Café at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, and James Beard Award-winning author James O. Fraioli, New Native Kitchen is a celebration of Indigenous cuisine.Accompanied by original artwork by Gabriella Trujillo and offering delicious dishes like Cherrystone Clam Soup from the Northeastern Wampanoag and Spice-Rubbed Pork Tenderloin from the Pueblo peoples, Bitsoie showcases the variety of flavor and culinary history on offer from coast to coast, providing modern interpretations of 100 recipes that have long fed this country"
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We are the land : a history of native California
by Damon B. Akins
"Before there was such a thing as "California," there were the People and the Land. Manifest Destiny, the Gold Rush, and settler colonial society drew maps, displaced Indigenous People, and reshaped the land, but they did not make California. Rather, thelives and legacies of the people native to the land shaped the creation of California. We Are the Land is the first and most comprehensive text of its kind, centering the long history of California around the lives and legacies of the Indigenous people who shaped it. Beginning with the ethnogenesis of California Indians, We Are the Land recounts the centrality of the Native presence from before European colonization through statehood-paying particularly close attention to the persistence and activism of California Indians in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The book deftly contextualizes the first encounters with Europeans, Spanish Missions, Mexican secularization, the devastation of the Gold Rush and statehood, genocide, efforts to reclaim land, and the organization and activism for sovereignty that built today's casino economy. A text designed to fill the glaring need for an accessible overview of California Indian history, We Are the Land will be a core resource in a variety of classroom settings, as well as for casual readers and policy-makers interested in a history that centers the native experience"
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Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall KimmererExplains how developing a wider ecological consciousness can foster an increased understanding of both nature's generosity and the reciprocal relationship humans have with the natural world.
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The Way We Lived : California Indian Stories, Songs & Reminiscences Edited by Malcolm MargolinHere, in their own words, indigenous voices reclaim the narrative of California Indians. Before contact, California's Native people comprised five hundred independent tribal groups whose cultural and linguistic multiplicity expressed a sense of incalculable human richness. Reflecting that diversity, this collection of personal histories, songs, chants, and stories draws together a range of experiences from throughout the state and across generations to reveal the continuous Native presence in what is now called the Golden State.
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An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-OrtizTold from the point of view of Native Americans, challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how the policies against the indigenous peoples was genocidal and imperialist.
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White magic : essays
by Elissa Washuta
"Throughout her life, Elissa Washuta has been surrounded by cheap facsimiles of Native spiritual tools and occult trends, "starter witch kits" of sage, rose quartz, and tarot cards packaged together in paper and plastic. Following a decade of abuse, addiction, PTSD, and heavy-duty drug treatment for a misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder, she felt drawn to the real spirits and powers her dispossessed and discarded ancestors knew, while she undertook necessary work to find love and meaning. In this collectionof intertwined essays, she writes about land, heartbreak, and colonization, about life without the escape hatch of intoxication, and about how she became a powerful witch. She interlaces stories from her forebears with cultural artifacts from her own life-Twin Peaks, the Oregon Trail II video game, a Claymation Satan, a YouTube video of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham-to explore questions of cultural inheritance and the particular danger, as a Native woman, of relaxing into romantic love under colonial rule"
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Red paint : the ancestral autobiography of a Coast Salish punk
by Sasha taqwšeblu LaPointe
Examining what it means to be vulnerable in love and art, an indigenous artist, blending together punk rock with traditional spiritual practices, throws herself headlong into the world, determined to build a better future for herself and her people.
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Crazy brave : a memoir
by Joy Harjo
This memoir from the Native American poet and author of She Had Some Horses describes her youth with an abusive stepfather, becoming a single teen mom and how she struggled to finally find inner peace and her creative voice. 20,000 first printing.
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An Indian among los Indígenas : a native travel memoir
by Ursula Pike
"Memoir by Ursula Pike (Karuk) of her time serving with the Peace Corps in Bolivia. Focusing on international travel from a California Indian perspective, the memoir asks what it means to be both colonizer and colonized, and inquires into the challenges of building relationships between Indigenous groups from very different places"
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Heart Berries : A Memoir by Terese Marie MailhotThe author recounts her coming of age on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest where she survived a dysfunctional childhood and found herself hospitalized with a dual diagnosis of PTSD and bipolar II disorder.
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Dog flowers : a memoir
by Danielle Geller
An award-winning essayist draws on archival documents in a narrative account that explores how her family’s troubled past and the death of her mother, a homeless alcoholic, reflected the traditions and tragic history of her Navajo heritage. Illustrations.
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Bad Indians : A Tribal Memoir by Deborah A. MirandaThis book, part tribal history, part lyric and intimate memoir, teaches us about California Indian history, past and present. In it, the author tells stories of her Ohlone Costanoan Esselen family as well as the experience of California Indians as a whole through oral histories, newspaper clippings, anthropological recordings, personal reflections, and poems.
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Postcolonial Love Poem : Poems by Natalie DiazPostcolonial Love Poem is an anthem of desire against erasure. Natalie Diaz's brilliant second collection demands that every body carried in its pages—bodies of language, land, rivers, suffering brothers, enemies, and lovers—be touched and held as beloveds. Through these poems, the wounds inflicted by America onto an indigenous people are allowed to bloom pleasure and tenderness.
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Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers : Poems by Jake Skeets"An amazing debut collection from Diné poet Jake Skeets that explores his experience and that of Native peoples with the American Southwest. Skeets's ability to use form and innovate with structure amplify his innate talent for constructing language that is simultaneously lush and razor sharp. Grappling with alcoholism, queer sexuality, and toxic masculinity, his poems confront and challenge; but through its swirl of violence and beauty, Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers is always vividly gorgeous." ―Caleb Masters, Bookmarks
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When the Light of the World was Subdued, our Songs Came Through : A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry by Joy Harjo"United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo gathers the work of more than 160 poets, representing nearly 100 indigenous nations, into the first historically comprehensive Native poetry anthology. This landmark anthology celebrates the indigenous peoples of North America, the first poets of this country, whose literary traditions stretch back centuries. Opening with a blessing from Pulitzer Prize-winner N. Scott Momaday, the book contains powerful introductions from contributing editors who represent the five geographically organized sections. Each section begins with a poem from traditional oral literatures and closes with emerging poets, ranging from Eleazar, a seventeenth-century Native student at Harvard, to Jake Skeets, a young Diné poet born in 1991, and including renowned writers such as Luci Tapahanso, Natalie Diaz, Layli Long Soldier, and Ray Young Bear. When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through offers the extraordinary sweep of Native literature, without which no study of American poetry is complete"
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Why we serve : Native Americans in the United States Armed Forces
by Alexandra N. Harris
"American Indians have served in our nation's military since colonial times. Throughout Indian Country, servicemen and women are some of the most honored members of their communities. Charged by Congress with creating a memorial on its grounds, the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) will dedicate the National Native American Veterans Memorial in fall 2020 to give all Americans the opportunity "to learn of the proud and courageous tradition of service of Native Americans." Why We Serve commemorates the opening of the memorial through the history of Native military service in all its complexity, from colonial Native nations who forged alliances, attempting to preserve their sovereignty, to contemporary individuals celebrating their Indigenous culture while fighting in foreign conflicts."
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Killers of the Flower Moon : the Osage murders and the birth of the FBI by David GrannPresents a true account of the early 20th-century murders of dozens of wealthy Osage and law-enforcement officials, citing the contributions and missteps of a fledgling FBI that eventually uncovered one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history. Reprint. A New York Times best-seller and National Book Award finalist.
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The Ohlone way : Indian life in the San Francisco-Monterey Bay area by Malcolm MargolinDescribes the culture of Native American inhabitants in the California Bay Area prior to the arrival of Europeans, offering insight into the daily lives, culture and rituals of the Ohlone while tracing their experiences under Spanish, Mexican and American regimes. By the author of The Way We Lived.
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