Leslie Silko (born 1948) is one of the foremost authors to emerge from the Native American literary renaissance of the 1970s. She blends western literary forms with the oral traditions of her Laguna P...
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In a contest of witchery among an assembly of Native American witches, one tells the group about white-skinned people who will come across the ocean. The storyteller explains how the newcomers will "g...
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Even before the publication of her novel Ceremony (1977), Leslie Marmon Silko had become recognized as one of the preeminent figures in what Kenneth Lincoln calls the Native American Renaissance -- t...
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During the early 1970s -- the emergent years of what Kenneth Lincoln has called the "Native American Renaissance" -- Leslie Marmon Silko was perhaps the movement's preeminent writer of short fiction. ...
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Despite that her most successful work is an early one, Leslie Marmon Silko remains a central voice in Native American literature. Her first novel, Ceremony (1977), is taught in colleges and universiti...
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Leslie Marmon Silko is one of the most important writers to emerge from the Native American Renaissance, a period of intense literary productivity by Native Americans that began with the 1968 publicat...
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In the following essay, Hirsch provides an in-depth examination of Leslie Marmon Silko's Storyteller, a collection of writings in several genres which, the critic suggests, constitutes a piece ...
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In the essay below, Krupat applies Mikhail Bakhtin's literary theories to Silko's Storyteller as he discusses the roles of authority and voice.
Autobiography as commonly understood in we...
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In the following essay, Jaskoski maintains that by contextualizing stories between cultures, Silko transforms the Laguna tales in Storyteller into universal stories.
Out of her own body she pushed sil...
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In the following essay, Jones analyzes Silko's use of the traditional Yellow Woman myth as a means of presenting the stories of the Laguna woman, her mother, and herself—merging myth and...
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In the essay below, Krumholz describes Silko's attempts to engage non-Native American readers in Storyteller in order to inform their understanding of Laguna culture.
Leslie Marmon Silko'...
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In the following interview, Silko discusses her perceptions of herself as a writer, the role of oral tradition, women and men's roles in Laguna Society, and the nature of Native American politi...
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Critical Essay by Charles R. Larson
The world that Silko creates in Ceremony is essentially a masculine one. Her story centers upon an Indian veteran named Tayo immediately after World War II. Cripple...
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Critical Essay by James Polk
Memory and invention are the stuff of Silko's storytelling. Although many of her stories [in Storyteller] traverse familiar territory—the dislocation of a di...
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Critical Essay by N. Scott Momaday
"Storyteller" is a rich, many-faceted book. It consists of short stories, anecdotes, folktales, poems, historical and autobiographical notes, and photo...
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Critical Essay by Simon J. Ortiz
[Ceremony] is a special and most complete example of [the affirmation of knowledge of source and place and spiritual return] and what it means in terms of Indian resis...
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Critical Essay by Hayden Carruth
Did Leslie Marmon Silko have in mind the word tao when she named the protagonist of her first novel? It's a striking resemblance, tao and Tayo. And clearly Tayo...
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Critical Essay by Ruth Mathewson
[In Ceremony] Silko demonstrates that she is a "saver"—of songs, religious rituals, histories, and stories of the Laguna Pueblo Indians of New Mex...
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Critical Essay by Frank Macshane
The literature of the American Indian is ritualistic. Its whole purpose is to establish a sense of unity between the individual and his surroundings, which include the...
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Critical Essay by Peter G. Beidler
Ceremony will surely take its place as one of a distinguished triumvirate of first novels by contemporary American Indians. Like Momaday's House Made of Dawn ...
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Critical Essay by Elaine Jahner
Ceremony is about the power of timeless, primal forms of seeing and knowing and relating to all of life. The concept of an on-going communal participation in stories th...
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Critical Essay by A. Lavonne Ruoff
For Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna), the strength of tribal traditions is based not on Indians' rigid adherence to given ceremonies or customs but rather on thei...
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Critical Essay by Edith Blicksilver
[Leslie Silko] attempts in some of her short stories and poems to explore the conflict between traditionalism and modernity. Fortunately, she has been able to trans...
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Critical Essay by Jarold Ramsey
[To] my mind nobody has drawn on an Indian mythology with more grace and power than the Laguna writer Leslie Silko…. [Even] a cursory survey in Boas Keresan Text...
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In the following essay, Evasdaughter asserts that, "the celestial laughter" Silko evokes in Ceremony "shows that Indian civilization is living and has the potential to transform a...
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In the following essay, Blumenthal analyzes the symbolism of the spotted cattle and their importance to Tayo's journey for healing in Silko's Ceremony.
Spotted cattle. Running with the g...
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In the following essay, Swan discusses the male relationships in Silko's Ceremony and how they relate to the customs and practices of the Pueblo of Laguna.
Leslie Marmon Silko's novel Ce...
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In the following essay, Swan analyzes the influence of matriliny typical of the Laguna Pueblo on Silko's Ceremony.
If we are to grasp the social and symbolic significance of the feminine in Nat...
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In the following essay, Krumholz discusses Silko's collection, Storyteller, asserting that the author "appropriates the terms of the colonizer in order to change forms of representation,...
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In the following essay, Wallace discusses Silko's Ceremony and N. Scott Momaday's The Ancient Child and states that the novels "are attempts to articulate the survival of those pe...
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In the following essay, Taylor Evans asserts that, "One of the basic unspoken feminist assumptions—that women are essentially powerless—is debunked within Silko's texts, fo...
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Leslie Marmon Silko uses the idea of being speckled and/or spotless in her book Ceremony. To try to be spotless is the Laguna people trying to become a part of white society, hence, becoming separated...
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Storytelling has played a vital role in our personal pasts and our cultural histories. Whether through word of mouth or written language, it is how the world today is connected to the world of yesterd...
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Leslie Silko
Leslie Marmon Silko
Leslie (Marmon) Silko
