Coming to Light: Contemporary Translations of the Native Literatures of North America

by Brian Swann

Book Overview

A richly diverse anthology of Native American literature draws on the work of more than 200 tribes across the United States and Canada, providing information on the historical and cultural contexts of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679743588
• ISBN13: 9780679743583
• Release Date: February 1996
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 801 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 5.1" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

An Interesting Read

I read many of the stories in this book for a college course and I found them to be rather interesting and thoughtful. Many of the tales are difficult to understand at times, but that usually comes with the oral stories provided by Native Americans. I would definitely recommend this collection of stories to anyone who is particularly curious in Native American legend.

The very best!

Not much need to be said, simply the best collection of indian oral literature I found, and I looked anywhere and everywhere!

Fantastic

Readers interested in the traditional stories, myths, folktales, and other cultural expressions of American Indians would be hard pressed to find a better anthology than this excellent book. Swann edited together stories from a wide range of regions within North America. He included terrific introductions by excellent researchers and authors. These introductions present sufficient background information to learn about the storytelling traditions, and the commentary helps readers understand and appreciate the texts. There is also an extensive bibliography that includes hundreds of additional sources for learning more about the stories, storytellers, authors, and societies that are represented in the book. The stories, themselves, are magnificent. Some are fairly accessible to readers with little knowledge of American Indian history and culture. Other narratives are more esoteric, and they must be read and reread with great patience. As readers develop ways to read these stories, the wonder of the tradition lights up ways to think about the verbal artistry of America's first peoples.

A magnificent collection of Native North American literature

"Coming to Light: Contemporary Translations of the Native Literatures of North America," edited by Brian Swann, is an amazing volume. Approximately 800 pages long, this anthology brings together materials from all over the continent. Cultures included range from the Yupik of Alaska to the Zuni of New Mexico to the Iroquois of southern Ontario--more than 30 different peoples in all.Each selection is preceded by its own separate introduction which discusses such topics as the culture and language of the people who produced the text, the specific storytellers, and translation issues.The material in the anthology includes creation myths, animal tales, trickster stories, songs, and stories of birth, death, and transformation. Some of the most remarkable selections include the Wolverine tales of the Innu, which are masterpieces of bawdy humor, and the Yupik tale of "The Boy Who Went to Live with the Seals," a magical story of human/animal relations. I highly recommend "Coming to Light."

Absolutely wonderful

I really found this book to be an endless source of delight, because it not only features the incredibly diverse multitudes of narratives from individual Native American nations, but it because as a whole it really challenges the assumptions that have been handed down to us by imperialists. This is a truly amazing collection by what must be a brilliant scholar.