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Overview edit
Bibliography
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(2004)
Face To Face: Women Writers On Faith Mysticism And Awakening
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(2002)
Sightings : The Gray Whales' Mysterious Journey (Adventure Press)
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(1998)
Power: A Novel
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(1998)
Intimate Nature: The Bond Between Women and Animals
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(1995)
Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World
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Linda Hogan was born in 1947 and is of mixed Native American heritage, primarily Chickasaw. She was born in Colorado but grew up on a reservation in Oklahoma, and her native heritage is a strong and pervasive influence on her writing.
Traditional Native culture honors the sacredness of family, of tribe, and of connectedness, not just among people, but between people and the environment they inhabit and the animals they co-exist with. Traditional Native culture also honors storytelling, and sees at least some stories as being sacred, as being more than entertainment. The sacredness of story is linked to the oral tradition in Native culture and literature. No Native language had a written alphabet until after the white man came to this hemisphere: A tribe’s history and culture and even survival depended upon the ability to remember and transmit long and complicated stories of origin and of history. This oral tradition has had a major effect upon the kinds of narratives Native American writers invent, and often leads to stories that are shaped differently than stories arising from western cultural traditions.
All of these elements have had an impact upon Hogan. She began her writing career as a poet, and the title of her first collection of poems, Calling Myself Home (1979), suggests the book’s concerns with themes of family and connectedness and of the nature of “home” for Native Americans. Her 1981 volume, Daughters, I Love You (1981), is a collection of poems against nuclear proliferation, a theme of concern to many Native writers because much of the uranium used in these weapons was mined on Native lands. Her first novel, Mean Spirit (1990) is a fictional account of the historical theft of oil lands from the Osage in Oklahoma by the white man. The novel intertwines generations of family history with the history of oil and its exploitation. Solar Storms (1997), her second novel, is a story of connections and re-birth among five generations of Native women who, in contemporary times, take a canoe journey they hope will heal both them and their land, under threat of development for hydropower. Power deals with the similar issue of the hope to revitalize the land and culture through the development of the main character, a sixteen-year-old girl.
Hogan has a long and passionate interest in the environment and with wildlife, and has worked as a volunteer with wildlife rehabilitators. She is at home in the natural world, in the Native world, and in the literary world. She counts among her influences other important Native writers such as Paula Gunn Allen and Joy Harjo, as well as non-Native writers such as Jamaica Kincaid. Her interests in tradition, in the environment, and in wildlife pervade her poetry and her fiction.
Traditional Native culture honors the sacredness of family, of tribe, and of connectedness, not just among people, but between people and the environment they inhabit and the animals they co-exist with. Traditional Native culture also honors storytelling, and sees at least some stories as being sacred, as being more than entertainment. The sacredness of story is linked to the oral tradition in Native culture and literature. No Native language had a written alphabet until after the white man came to this hemisphere: A tribe’s history and culture and even survival depended upon the ability to remember and transmit long and complicated stories of origin and of history. This oral tradition has had a major effect upon the kinds of narratives Native American writers invent, and often leads to stories that are shaped differently than stories arising from western cultural traditions.
All of these elements have had an impact upon Hogan. She began her writing career as a poet, and the title of her first collection of poems, Calling Myself Home (1979), suggests the book’s concerns with themes of family and connectedness and of the nature of “home” for Native Americans. Her 1981 volume, Daughters, I Love You (1981), is a collection of poems against nuclear proliferation, a theme of concern to many Native writers because much of the uranium used in these weapons was mined on Native lands. Her first novel, Mean Spirit (1990) is a fictional account of the historical theft of oil lands from the Osage in Oklahoma by the white man. The novel intertwines generations of family history with the history of oil and its exploitation. Solar Storms (1997), her second novel, is a story of connections and re-birth among five generations of Native women who, in contemporary times, take a canoe journey they hope will heal both them and their land, under threat of development for hydropower. Power deals with the similar issue of the hope to revitalize the land and culture through the development of the main character, a sixteen-year-old girl.
Hogan has a long and passionate interest in the environment and with wildlife, and has worked as a volunteer with wildlife rehabilitators. She is at home in the natural world, in the Native world, and in the literary world. She counts among her influences other important Native writers such as Paula Gunn Allen and Joy Harjo, as well as non-Native writers such as Jamaica Kincaid. Her interests in tradition, in the environment, and in wildlife pervade her poetry and her fiction.
