Twenty-seven Native American writers describe their lives and art in this compelling collection.

When the editors Arnold Krupat and Brian Swann asked twenty-seven Native American writers to describe their lives in relation to their art, they received an extraordinary array of responses -- twenty-seven pieces of autobiographical remembrance united only by a common set of Native American heritages.

The writers, artists, poets, and academics represented here have recorded a memorable series of personal and family histories illuminated by verse and song, story, and narrative, all fed by the strong oral tradition of the indigenous peoples of this country. As Coming to Light, the collection of Native American writing edited by Brian Swann, demonstrated with literature, the Native American experience is broad and complex, and worth listening to closely.

Arnold Krupat is the author of several books, including The Turn to the Native: Studies in Criticism & Culture and the novel Woodsmen, or Thoreau and the Indians. He teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.



Brian Swann has published a number of collections of poetry and fiction, including Wearing the Morning Star: Native American Song-Poems and Coming to Light: Contemporary Translations of the Native Literatures of North America. He teaches at the Cooper Union in New York City.