Momaday, N. Scott

The Way to Rainy Mountain

First published in paperback by UNM Press in 1976, The Way to Rainy Mountain has sold over 200,000 copies.

"The paperback edition of The Way to Rainy Mountain was first published twenty-five years ago. One should not be surprised, I suppose, that it has remained vital, and immediate, for that is the nature of story. And this is particularly true of the oral tradition, which exists in a dimension of timelessness. I was first told these stories by my father when I was a child. I do not know how long they had existed before I heard them. They seem to proceed from a place of origin as old as the earth.

"The stories in The Way to Rainy Mountain are told in three voices. The first voice is the voice of my father, the ancestral voice, and the voice of the Kiowa oral tradition. The second is the voice of historical commentary. And the third is that of personal reminiscence, my own voice. There is a turning and returning of myth, history, and memoir throughout, a narrative wheel that is as sacred as language itself."--from the new Preface

House Made of Dawn

House Made of Dawn, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1969, tells the story of a young American Indian named Abel, home from a foreign war and caught between two worlds: one his father's, wedding him to the rhythm of the seasons and the harsh beauty of the land; the other of industrial America, a goading him into a compulsive cycle of dissipation and disgust.

The Ancient Child: A Novel

In his first novel since the Pulitzer Prize-winning House Made of Dawn, N. Scott Momaday shapes the ancient Kiowa myth of a boy who turned into a bear into a timeless American classic. The Ancient Child juxtaposes Indian lore and Wild West legend into a hypnotic, often lyrical contemporary novel--the story of Locke Setman, known as Set, a Native American raised far from the reservation by his adoptive father. Set feels a strange aching in his soul and, returning to tribal lands for the funeral of his grandmother, is drawn irresistibly to the fabled bear-boy. When he meets Grey, a beautiful young medicine woman with a visionary gift, his world is turned upside down. Here is a magical saga of one man's tormented search for his identity--a quintessential American novel, and a great one.

The Man Made of Words: Essays, Stories, Passages

The winner of the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novel, House Made of Dawn, N. Scott Momaday is renowned as an influential Native American writer. In this collection of essays he turns his attention to the differences between oral and written cultures; to places he has visited and lived; and to the weighty issues of government Indian policies and the enduring damage they continue to inflict. He writes movingly of his Kiowa forebears, and he teaches us great lessons about mankind and its relationship to nature. Momaday is a deeply thoughtful observer and a graceful writer, and the essays in The Man Made of Words are both provocative and elegant.

The Names (Sun Tracks, Vol 16)

Of all of the works of N. Scott Momaday, The Names may be the most personal. A memoir of his boyhood in Oklahoma and the Southwest, it is also described by Momaday as "an act of the imagination. When I turn my mind to my early life, it is the imaginative part of it that comes first and irresistibly into reach, and of that part I take hold." Complete with family photos, The Names is a book that will captivate readers who wish to experience the Native American way of life.

Circle of Wonder: A Native American Christmas Story

“Circle of Wonder centers upon a world that is so dear to me as to be engraved on my memory forever. I was a boy of twelve when my parents and I moved to Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico in 1946. . . . It was a place of singular beauty and wonder and delight. My first Christmas there was beyond my imagining. . . . The night sky was radiant; the silence was vast and serene. In all the years of my life I have not gone farther into the universe. I have not known better the essence of peace and the sense of eternity. I have come no closer to the understanding of the most holy.”—N. Scott Momaday

Four Arrows & Magpie: A Kiowa Story

Through the eyes of two Kiowa children, young readers will learn the beauty and danger of a world almost forgotten. The mythic legend of how the Kiowa Indians first arrived in Oklahoma will awaken children to the richness of the stateÕs Indian heritage. Illustrated with sketches almost poetic in their simplicity and paintings that echo the power and precision of his prose, this book reminds us all how deeply the past and the present are intertwined.

In the Bear's House

In The Presence of The Sun: Stories and Poems

Cliffsnotes House Made of Dawn (Cliffs Notes)

With great respect and attention to detail, Momaday tells a story of four days in the lives of Native American people who are struggling to maintain their identity in the ever-changing and approaching modern world.