Silko is widely recognized as one of the most important Native American writers of her generation. With her first novel, Ceremony (1977), she was the first Native American woman ever to publish a novel. Paula Gunn Allen followed in her footsteps, with the publication of The Woman Who Owned the Shadows in 1983, as did Louise Erdrich with her novel Love Medicine in 1984. Silko is associated with a generation of Native American writers which emerged in the 1970s, in what has been called the Native American Renaissance in literature. Silko has been associated with other writers of this renaissance such as Scott Momaday, James Welch, and Gerald Vizenor.

Silko's first significant publication, while she was still in college, was the short story "The Man to Send Rainclouds," which has since been anthologized several times. Her first book of poetry, Laguna Woman, referring to her heritage as part Laguna...