This Week in Literary History: N. Scott Momaday wins the Pulitzer

THIS WEEK IN

May 2   -   MAY 8

N. Scott Momaday wins the Pulitzer

On May 5, 1969, N. Scott Momaday, Kiowa novelist, memoirist, and poet, became the first Indigenous writer to win a Pulitzer Prize in any category. Momaday took it home for his debut novel House Made of Dawn, which has since been credited with kickstarting what critic Kenneth Lincoln, in his 1983 book, termed the Native American Renaissance. 

“There were only nine novels published by Native authors before Momaday made his bow with House Made of Dawn,” write scholars Alan R. Velie and A. Robert Lee in their introduction to a 2013 collection of essays by Native writers. “By the time Lincoln wrote, there were scores; now there are hundreds. These take their place alongside a matching output of all the other genres, a body of Native authorship now as wide in compass as it has been bold in imagination.”

Literature, needless to say, is better for it. As for Momaday’s novel itself, it was warmly received by both critics and readers. In The Paris Review, Ben Pfeiffer wrote, “House Made of Dawn is both a masterpiece about the universal human condition and a masterpiece of Native American literature. . . both a beautiful artistic object, a book everyone should read for the joy and emotion of the language it contains, and an important milestone in the publishing industry’s recognition of Native American voices.” We are lucky to have it. 

MORE ON NATIVE AMERICAN LIT

The Books You Need to Read to

Understand Native Comedy 

Richard Wagamese on Anti-Native Racism
and Deciding to Fight Back

Scott Momaday on the Vulnerability
of Prairielands

WATCH: A Roundtable on Contemporary

Native Fiction

Essential Wisdom

“We are what we imagine. Our very existence consists in our imagination of ourselves. Our best destiny is to imagine, at least, completely, who and what, and that we are. The greatest tragedy that can befall us is to go unimagined.”

THE MAN MADE OF WORDS

In other (old)

news this week

After 7 years of work by 47 scholars, the first edition of the King James Bible went off to the printer (May 2, 1611) • Alice fell down the rabbit hole (May 4, 1865) • Dodie Smith, the English author most famous for The Hundred and One Dalmatians and I Capture the Castle, was born in Lancashire (May 3, 1896) • Virginia Woolf’s classic novel To the Lighthouse was published—but have you seen the made-for-tv version? (May 5, 1927) • William Faulkner arrived at MGM (late, drunk, bleeding from the head) for his first day of work as a Hollywood screenwriter (May 7, 1932) • While Edna St. Vincent Millay strolled on a Florida beach, looking for shells, her hotel burned to the ground—her manuscript for Conversation at Midnight along with it. Don’t worry, she rewrote it from memory and published it the next year! (May 2, 1936) • Angela Carter was born, and proceeded to give no f*cks (May 7, 1940)

ON A WONDERFUL, BEAUTIFUL, ALMOST FAILED SENTENCE BY VIRGINIA WOOLF

50 FASCINATING WORKS OF ANGELA CARTER FAN ART

“Accept praise for its worth—politeness. Be brutally frank with yourself. It’s safer.”

–NELLIE BLY

Born this week in 1864

“As an aspiring artist, you should strive for originality of vision. Have something to say and a fresh way of saying it. No story is worth the writing, no picture worth the making, if it’s not the work of the imagination.”

–MAURICE SENDAK

Died this week in 2012

Copyright © 2021 Literary Hub. All rights reserved.

Unsubscribe | Manage Preferences