The Native American Renaissance (post-1968)
The phrase “Native American Renaissance” was coined by the critic Kenneth Lincoln in
1983. The “renaissance” refers to the increasing visibility and prominence of Native
American literature within the world of mainstream publishing since Kiowa author N.
Scott Momaday won the Pulitzer Prize in 1968 for House Made of Dawn . Before that time, Native writers did not receive widespread attention for their work, even though notable literature was produced by writers such as William Apess, Sarah Winnemucca,
Charles Eastman, Zitkala Sa, D’Arcy McNickle, and John Joseph Mathews prior to
World War Two.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a generation of Native Americans who were the first to receive an education in universities outside of the Indian boarding schools began to publish their work. Since the 1950s conditions for Native people, while still very difficult, had moved beyond the conditions of the early half of the century in which
Native people had to struggle to simply survive, or prove that they were worthy of assimilation into white society. The Termination policy of the 1950s, which sought to end federal recognition and support of Indian tribes and relocate Indians to urban areas, continued a pattern of breaking up tribal customs and dislocating Native people from reservations. Yet with the changing political climate of the 1960s, which included the rise of the American Indian Movement and its attempts to increase awareness of Native
American struggles, some Native writers began to assert a sense of pride in tribal traditions and cultures, and began writing more critically about colonization and racism in American culture.
Beginning in the late 1960s, many writers began to rewrite dominant versions of history, in order to represent the history of the invasion and colonization of the North American continent from a Native American perspective (most notably Vine Deloria, Jr.). In addition, the Civil Rights, environmental, and counter-cultural movements of the 1960s shifted public opinion toward Native Americans, and not only increased sympathy among the general public for the struggles of Native Americans, but also led to a kind of reversal in American attitudes toward Natives. This new attitude, based in part on a romantic stereotype, led many (middle class) white Americans to try to emulate and appropriate
Native American spiritual and cultural traditions, in a phenomenon known as “going native.” This Euroamerican image of Native American culture as ecological, wise, and infinitely superior to a more crass American society, became a new source of inspiration for white Americans who were increasingly critical of the materialism and consumerism of post-World War Two America, as well as the violent war in Vietnam.
During this time of cultural conflict and change, a group of Native writers expanded the
Native American literary canon tremendously. At the same time, Native American
Studies departments were established at several universities. In addition, scholarly journals such as SAIL ( Studies in American Indian Literatures ), American Indian
Quarterly , and Wicazo Sa Review further increased publishing opportunities for new
Native American writers.

The writers who are frequently associated with the Native American Renaissance include:

Louise Erdrich

Joy Harjo

N. Scott Momaday

Simon J. Ortiz

Leslie Marmon Silko

Gerald Vizenor

James Welch
The category “Native American Renaissance” has been criticized for various reasons. As
James Ruppert notes, “scholars hesitate to use the phrase because it might imply that
Native writers were not producing significant work before that time, or that these writers sprang up without longstanding community and tribal roots. Indeed, if this was a rebirth, what was the original birth?” (“Fiction-1968-Present”). Other critics argue that the term dismisses the literary value of the oral tradition. Still others criticize the tendency in works of the Native American Renaissance to focus on an alienated male protagonist who is often tragically caught between two worlds, and therefore trapped in a futile clash between tradition and assimilation; these critics note that this conflict reproduces the
“tragic” image of the “vanishing Indian.”
Even so, the “Native American Renaissance” increased the general public’s understanding of Native American history and culture, and provided an opening for
Native American literature to enter the mainstream American literary canon. It is perhaps because of this movement that works of Native American literature are included in anthologies of American literature today, and assigned in college English classes.