Contemporary Native Fiction

Contemporary Native Fiction: Toward a Narrative Poetics of Survivance illustrates and amplifies the productive strength of using an archive (American Indian literature/Indigenous literary scholarship) and a set of tools (Narratology) that strengthens the epistemology of both Indigenous literary studies and Narrative Theory. By focusing on survivance, Donahue illuminates the vibrancy of contemporary American Indian writers and counters the stereotypes of American Indians as figures of a dead past or victims of history. This work proves why survivance is such a vital trope to consider in reading Native American literature and why Narratology is the most productive theoretical lens to use for a truly nuanced understanding of the vitality of contemporary American Indian literature.

--Jennifer Ho, Professor, Department of English and Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill