The Red Land to the South

American Indian Writers and Indigenous Mexico

James H. Cox

• Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781452934037
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

The forty years of American Indian literature taken up by James H. Cox—the decades between 1920 and 1960—have been called politically and intellectually moribund. On the contrary, Cox identifies a group of American Indian writers who share an interest in the revolutionary potential of the indigenous peoples of Mexico—and whose work demonstrates a surprisingly assertive literary politics in the era.

By contextualizing this group of American Indian authors in the work of their contemporaries, Cox reveals how the literary history of this period is far more rich and nuanced than is generally acknowledged. The writers he focuses on—Todd Downing (Choctaw), Lynn Riggs (Cherokee), and D’Arcy McNickle (Confederated Salish and Kootenai)—are shown to be on par with writers of the preceding Progressive and the succeeding Red Power and Native American literary renaissance eras.

Arguing that American Indian literary history of this period actually coheres in exciting ways with the literature of the Native American literary renaissance, Cox repudiates the intellectual and political border that has emerged between the two eras.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The Contact Zone: Where Organized Crime and Everyday Life Comingle
• One: Where There’s Money, There’s the Camorra
• Two: Making Do with Art: Counterfeit Music, Pirate TV, and Crime Clan Weddings
• Three: The Sceneggiata: Melodramas of Manhood, Allegories of Violence
• Four: Family Affairs: Coming of Age Onstage
• Five: Ethnographic Imbroglios
• Six: Who Am I and Who Are You? The Promise and Threat of Contact with the Camorra
• Epilogue: Making Do with Indeterminacy
• Bibliography
• About The Author