Monday, December 19, 2022

Does anyone know of any historical fiction set during the distant past written by Indigenous authors?

Hello frens. I just got out of a reading slump and finished The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative by Cherokee author Thomas King, which is about the incorrect stories people tell about Native people in order to stereotype them. It's a very original book and honestly my short synopsis of it isn't really doing it justice. If you're familiar with Thomas King's other work, you probably know about how well he manages to integrate historical sources, personal anecdotes and stories from his culture along with his amazing sense of humour in order to make his points. 

Anyways, there was something King mentioned in the book that is the reason why I am writing this. My blog is integrated with Goodreads, so many bookpeople from many different cultures will see this and I would like to start a discussion in the comments if possible. He mentioned that contemporary Native authors do not write in the historical fiction genre much. They prefer writing about contemporary Native life. I thought this was a very interesting observation. Historical fiction on Native people is a genre that is very dominated by white authors with stereotypical, romanticized and/or racist portrayals. It could be that contemporary Native writers do not want to be associated with this genre for this reason but I would like to hear if y'all know any other reasons why they might not want to write in the historical fiction genre. 

Also, if anyone does know of exceptions (and I am sure there are many because Thomas King was just commenting on a general trend he observed) please recommend them to me because I would be very curious to read historical fiction by Native authors and see how it may be different from white authors. I have read The Orenda by Joseph Boyden but I know many people doubt if Boyden is even Native so I won't count that one.  

I pretty much grew up on historical fiction novels because I loved the genre so much. Pauline Gedge's "The Hippopotamus Marsh" about ancient Egypt, Alex Rutherford's "Empire of the Moghul" series, Bernard Cornwell's "The Last Kingdom," about the Norse and Saxons, Gary Jennings Aztec series and Zoe Saadia's Rise of the Aztecs series were some of my favourites. But I am aware that this is what I would call "commercial fiction" or whatever you call stuff that isn't literary, more for consoomers if you understand what I mean. It's sort of cheap entertainment. Of these, Zoe Saadia and Gary Jennings were the only ones who wrote about cultures from the Americas. And the Israeli author Zoe Saadia was the only one whose stories are set entirely pre-contact (which I really really like). The first book in the Aztec series by Gary Jennings takes place during/right after the Spanish conquest and each novel following that is about New Spain. We really do not get to read much about the European-free era in his book, which is a shame. But I loved that Saadia's books do not contain any European characters.  

So again if anyone has book recommendations on historical fiction by Native authors, I would be thrilled. The further back in the past the setting is, the better. Thanks frens. 

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