June 01, 2008

Indigenous epic fantasy

First Nations Fantasy by Daniel Heath JusticeWithin Native Studies, there are a lot of awesome people. Daniel Heath Justice is among them. He teaches in the Centre for Aboriginal Initiatives at the University of Toronto. Daniel is Cherokee.

Academic work aside, Daniel writes fantasy. Specifically, a trilogy called "The Way of Thorn and Thunder." In it are three books: Kynship, Wynwood, and Dreyd.

Daniel calls the trilogy "an Indigenous Epic Fantasy." On this page, he talks about the "civilization" vs "savagery" binary, the Noble and Ignoble Savage imagery that predominates representations of indigenous peoples, and then, he talks about his series.
(Excerpted from Debbie Reese's American Indians in Children's Literature, 5/29/08.)

Comment:  For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Books.

1 comment:

dmarks said...

By all means do check out "Knee Deep in Thunder" and "Hunt Down the Prize" by Sheila Moon