Pow Wow: American Short Fiction from Then to Now

By Ishmael Reed, James Alan McPherson, Charles Wright, et al.

Book Overview

Using the yardstick that a short story is any fiction under 15,000 words, Ishmael Reed--with the assistance of Carla Blank--has assembled an anthology that reexamines the history of the form across a broader, more inclusive spectrum. The result is a collection that stretches the boundaries of the American literary landscape, including work ranging from animal stories of the Northwest Coast Eyaks to African-American folklore to reflections on the American Muslim experience. Pow-Wow is the sequel to Reed's From Totems to Hip-Hop: A Multicultural Anthology of Poetry Across the Americas, 1900 -2002 , a volume that included both Tupac Shakur and T. S. Eliot, and was named one of the best poetry anthologies of 2003 by Library Journal . Its fiction-focused follow-up once again demonstrates the broad range of American writing, from such stellar names as Langston Hughes, Gertrude Stein, Russell Banks, and Alejandro Murgu?a to newly discovered writers of all races, genders, and backgrounds. By presenting many different sides to the American story, the fiction of these writers challenges official history, shatters accepted myths, and provides alternatives to mainstream notions of personal and national identity. Gathering these voices together, Pow Wow offers a fascinating and vital opportunity to traverse the fault lines that separate, distinguish, and define a nation made of many Americas.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1568583400
• ISBN13: 9781568583402
• Release Date: January 2009
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Length: 536 Pages
• Weight: 0.97 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.8" x 2.0" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

excellent selection of stories you won't find elsewhere

I am still only about 1/3 through this collection of short strories. All have value, but two have knocked my sox off. The Guinea Pig Lady catches life in a backwater trailer park in NH, shades of Carolyn Chute, terrific story and character development. The best so far is Wormwood, a well told tale that takes you along one road of story telling, and then BOOM! This anthology was recommended to me by no one, but it showed up as a new volume in my little local library in Maine, I gambled, and it is a treasure. I sense that a lot of modern writing is cranked out under the umbrella of academia, and that the author is required to "earn his stripes" withing the ivied halls. Not these stories. Give it a look.