Mediation In Contemporary Native American Fiction

by James Ruppert

Mediation is the term James Ruppert uses to describe his important new theory of reading Native American fiction. Focusing on novels of six major contemporary American writers -- N. Scott Momaday, James Welch, Leslie Silko, Gerald Vizenor, D'Arcy McNickle, and Louise Erdrich -- Ruppert analyzes the ways in which these writers draw upon their bicultural heritage, guiding Native and non-Native readers alike to a different and expanded understanding of each other's worlds. Their fiction, which emphasizes healing, survival, and continuance, aims to produce cross-cultural understanding rather than divisiveness.

192 pp — ©1997