Pulitzer winner N. Scott Momaday, pioneer Native American literature, dead at 89

N. Scott Momaday, the Pulitzer Prize-winning storyteller, poet, educator, and folklorist whose debut novel House of Dawn is widely regarded as the starting point for modern Native American literature, has died. He was 89 years old.

Momaday died Wednesday at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, publisher HarperCollins announced. He was in declining health.

“Scott was an extraordinary person, an extraordinary poet and writer. He was a unique voice in American literature, and it was an honor and privilege to work with him,” said Momaday editor Jennifer. Civilette said in a statement. “His Kiowa heritage was very meaningful to him, and he dedicated much of his life to celebrating and preserving Native American culture, especially oral traditions.”

Best-selling author Jared Cohen to release new book ‘Life After Power’ about seven former US presidents

The House of Dawn, published in 1968, tells the story of a World War II soldier returning home and struggling to reintegrate into society, a story as old as war itself. . In this case, the home is an indigenous community in rural New Mexico. Much of the book is based on Momaday’s childhood in Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico, and the conflict between the ways of his ancestors and the risks and possibilities of the outside world.

“I grew up in both worlds, and I still straddle them,” Momaday said in a 2019 PBS documentary. “It brought chaos and richness to my life.”

Despite works such as John Joseph Matthews’ 1934 novel Sundown, American Indian fiction was not widely recognized at the time of The House of Dawn. In an otherwise favorable review, New York Times critic Marshall Sprague wrote, “American Indians, as a rule, do not write novels or poems, nor do they teach English at top universities. He even claimed, “You can’t be patronizing. N. Scott.” Momaday’s book is great in its own right. ”

Like Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, Momaday’s novel was a World War II story that resonated with a generation protesting the Vietnam War. In 1969, Momaday became the first Native American to win the Pulitzer Prize, and his novels contributed to the birth of a generation of writers such as Leslie Marmon, Silko, James Welch, and Louise Erdrich. His admirers range from poet Joy Harjo, the first Native American poet laureate, to movie stars Robert Redford and Jeff Bridges.

Over the next several decades, he taught at top universities such as Stanford, Princeton, and Columbia, served as a commentator on NPR, and lectured around the world. He has published more than a dozen books, from Angel of Geese and Other Poems to the novels The Way to Rainy Mountain and The Ancient Child, which explore the beauty and vitality of traditional Indigenous life. He became a great advocate.

Speaking at a gathering of American Indian scholars in 1970, Momaday said, “Our very existence consists in our imagination of ourselves.” He defended Native Americans’ reverence for nature, writing that “American Indians have a unique investment in the American landscape.” He told stories he had heard from his parents and grandparents. He viewed oral culture as the source of language and stories, traced American culture back to ancient times as well as early English settlers, and noted the processions of gods depicted in the rock art of Utah’s Barrier Canyon. .

“We don’t know what they mean, but we know that we participate in their meanings,” he writes in the essay “Native Voices in American Literature.”

“They have endured through time in the imagination, and there is no doubt that they are infused into the very essence of language, the language of stories and myths and primordial songs. They are more or less 2,000 years ago, and they said: Whatever the origins of American literature.”

In 2007, President George W. Bush awarded Momaday the National Medal of Arts for “his writings and work celebrating and preserving the arts and oral traditions of American Indians.” In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, he also received the Academy of American Poets Award and the 2019 Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

Momaday has been married twice, most recently to Regina Heitzer. He had four daughters, one of whom, Kael, died in 2017.

He was born Navarre Scott Mamedati in Lawton, Oklahoma, and was a member of the Kiowa Nation. His mother was a writer and his father an artist who once told his son, “I don’t know an Indian kid who couldn’t draw,” a talent Momaday clearly shared. . His works, ranging from charcoal sketches to oil paintings, have been published in his books and exhibited in museums in Arizona, New Mexico, and North Dakota. The audio guide for a tour of the Smithsonian’s American Indian Museum featured Momaday’s rugged baritone.

After spending his teenage years in New Mexico, he studied political science at the University of Mexico, earning a master’s degree and a Ph.D. He is in English from Stanford. Momaday started out as a poet, his favorite art form, and the publication of The House of Dawn was an unintended consequence of his early reputation. Current HarperCollins editor Fran McCullough had met Momaday at Stanford University and contacted him a few years later to ask if he would like to submit a collection of poems.

Mr. Momaday didn’t have enough to buy a book, so he gave her the first chapter of “The House of Dawn” instead.

Much of his writing revolves around the American West, whether it’s a tribute to the animal he most identified with, the bear, or a series of poems about the life of Billy the Kid, his childhood obsession. and is set in the Southwest. He saw his writing as a means of bridging the present and the ancient past, summarizing his personal exploration in the poem “If I Could Ascend.”

There’s something inside me that looks like a leaf. / It hardly shakes at all, / and there is no light to see it / as it withers on the black field. / If it could last more than a thousand years in my mouth / I would finally put it into words / And I would speak it into the silence of the sun.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

In 2019, he was the subject of the PBS “American Masters” documentary, in which he discussed his belief that he was the reincarnation of a bear associated with Native American origin stories around Devil’s Tower, Wyoming. He told The Associated Press in a rare interview that his documentary allowed him to reflect on his life.

Redford said in the film, “I thought his voice was the narrator’s voice. But because I made it resonate with this poet, it took on a completely different tone.” “I think that’s why I fell in love with Scott.”

More than half a century after the publication of his first novel, Momaday said he is humbled by how writers continue to say his work was an influence. “I’m very grateful, but I’m a little surprised every time I hear that,” Momaday said. “I think I’ve been influenced. It’s not something I take much credit for.”