"The Men in the Bar Feared Her": The Power of Ayah in Leslie Marmon Silko’s "Lullaby"
Studies in American Indian Literatures
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Leslie Marmon Silko, who is of Laguna Pueblo, Mexican, and white ancestry, states her political agenda: "I feel it is more effective to write a story like "Lullaby" than to rant and rave. I think it is more effective in reaching people" (Seyersted, Two Interviews 24), In the short story "Lullaby," which is "among the most often reprinted stories in American Indian literature," Silko draws on Navajo (Dine) characters (Graulich 19). First published in 1974 in both Chicago Review and Yardbird Reader, "Lullaby" was later selected by Martha Foley as one of twenty works for The Best American Short Stories of 1975. Silko then included it in Storyteller (1981). Writing outside of her own Laguna Pueblo tradition in "Lullaby" presents the challenge to the reader of having to be aware of not only Silko's tribal heritage but also that of the Navajo.
American literature--Indian authors; Indians of North America
Arts and Humanities | English Language and Literature | Indigenous Studies | Literature in English, North America | Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority | Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies
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Hollrah, P. E.
"The Men in the Bar Feared Her": The Power of Ayah in Leslie Marmon Silko’s "Lullaby".
Studies in American Indian Literatures, 15(2),