The End of Old Horse | Literary Criticism & Book Review

The End of Old Horse Critical Overview

Men on the Moon, that includes "The End of Old Horse" is Simon J. Ortiz's first collection of short stories: Ortiz has published children's literature, non-fiction, and memoirs, but he is best known as one of the preeminent voices in Native American poetry. When this book was published, Matt Pifer, reviewing the book in World Literature Today, observed that the stories in it "illustrate the sense Simon Ortiz has of the subtleties and power inherent in language, a sense he developed, in part, from the tradition of storytelling so deeply rooted in the culture of his Acoma people."

Ortiz's Acoma background is such an important part of his identity and the stories that he tells that few reviewers neglect to mention it. This is not to say that he has been pigeonholed by the reviewers: his heritage is a fact of Ortiz's life and has been a central frame...
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