Today we recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day. We pause to note our publications by indigenous authors, which include fiction, poetry, theatrical work, and nonfiction prose.

Forthcoming from Wesleyan is Gearld Vizenor’s anticipated novel Satie on the Seine. It is a powerful epistolary novel that interweaves history, cultural stories, and irony to reveal a shadow play of truth and politics. Basile Hudon Beaulieu lives in a houseboat on the River Seine in Paris between 1932 and 1945. He observes the liberals, fascist, artists, and bohemians, and presents puppet shows with his brother. His thoughts and experiences are documented in the form of fifty letters to the heirs of the fur trade. Vizenor, a citizen of the White Earth Nation, lends a unique voice of Native American presence and survivance in the world of literature, and in his inimitable creative style he delivers a moving, challenging, and darkly humorous commentary on modernity.

Abigail Chabitnoy’s debut poetry collection How to Dress a Fish, addresses the lives disrupted by US Indian boarding school policy. A poet of Aleut descent, Chabitnoy looks at boarding school records, Russian ethnologies, and her own family history to fight against the attempted erasure of indigenous experiences.

Other recent work by indigenous people include Wings of Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light and Soul Talk, Song Language by United StatesPoet Laureate Joy Harjo, the first Native American to hold that honor. A multitalented artist of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation, Harjo explores the genres of playwriting, personal essays, interviews, and conversations in these two works. Primarily known as a poet, Harjo has authored a number of poetry collections, including In Mad Love and War, consisting of poems that explore rage, grief, oppression, and the reality of living on stolen land.

Learn more about these authors and their books…