Pow-Wow
Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience - Short Fiction from Then to Now
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
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 MurguÃto 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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With help from writers such as Benjamin Franklin, Grace Paley and Wanda Coleman, novelist/poet/essayist Reed puts together a captivating, multifarious look at the American experience through its short fiction (a "cousin" to his lauded poetry anthology From Totems to Hip-Hop). From the ins and outs of a young Latino's struggle in an Anglo-dominated Catholic school (Nash Candelaria's "The Day the Cisco Kid Shot John Wayne") to Haight Street during the Summer of Love ("Wormwood" by Conyus), Reed's selections will draw readers into American cities, suburbs, prairies and mountains with vivid, precise, at times documentary description and bold, personal questions of American identity and purpose. At the same time, the overwhelming role of love, loss, and growth can render them almost allegorical; a perfect example is Wajahat Ali's "Ramadan Blues," in which a young boy is first introduced to the traditional holiday fast. The boy's fear and self-deprecation over his meager battle with hunger balance the personal detail and honesty of the autobiographical with the sweep of America's religious legacy. A "gathering of voices from the different American tribes," this highly varied collection doesn't neglect important works from the likes of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, George S. Schuyler, Gertrude Stein and Mark Twain.
