Leslie Marmon Silko

Leslie Marmon Silko (born Leslie Marmon; born March 5, 1948) is an American writer. A woman of Laguna Pueblo descent, she is one of the key figures in the First Wave of what literary critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance.

Silko was a debut recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Grant in 1981, the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994 and the Robert Kirsch Award in 2020. She currently resides in Tucson, Arizona.

Early life

Leslie Marmon Silko was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico to Leland Howard Marmon, a noted photographer, and Mary Virginia Leslie, a teacher, and grew up on the Laguna Pueblo reservation. Her mixed-race family was of white American, Native American, and Mexican descent. She wrote that her paternal grandmother, who was born in Montana, had a father whose family was "part Plains Indian" but that her grandmother "never knew" which tribe she was descended from, and that her grandmother's father was "half German" with an "Indian" mother. She also wrote that her maternal grandmother was part Cherokee "through her Grandfather Wood" who was from Kentucky.

Silko grew up on the edge of Laguna Pueblo society both literally – her family's house was at the edge of the Laguna Pueblo reservation – but was not able to participate in some of the rituals because of the distance of their home. Her father's Laguna blood quantum was one-quarter and hers is one-eighth; the Laguna Pueblo blood quantum requirement for regular membership is one-quarter. She is not an enrolled citizen of the Laguna Pueblo. Calling herself a "mixed-breed," she had said that a sense of community is more important to Native identity than blood quantum: "That's where a person's identity has to come from, not from racial blood quantum levels." She has described her Marmon family history as "very controversial, even now." She is of Laguna descent through her great-grandfather, a Laguna woman named Maria Anaya/Analla, who was married to a white settler named Robert Gunn Marmon. According to Silko, the core theme of her writing is an attempt to make sense of what it means to be "neither white nor fully traditionally Indian." She identifies culturally as a Laguna woman, but does not claim to be representative of Native voices.

While her parents worked, Silko and her two sisters were cared for by their grandmother, Lillie Stagner, and great-grandmother, Helen Romero, both story-tellers. Silko learned much of the traditional stories of the Laguna people from her grandmother, whom she called A'mooh, her aunt Susie, and her grandfather Hank during her early years. As a result, Silko has always identified most strongly with her Laguna heritage, stating in an interview with Alan Velie, "I am of mixed-breed ancestry, but what I know is Laguna."

Silko's education included preschool through the fifth grade at Laguna BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) School and followed by a Catholic school, the latter meant a day's drive by her father of 100 miles to avoid the boarding-school experience. Silko went on to receive a BA in English Literature from the University of New Mexico in 1969; she briefly attended the University of New Mexico law school before pursuing her literary career full-time.

Early literary work

Silko garnered early literary acclaim for her short story "The Man to Send Rain Clouds," which was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Discovery Grant. The story continues to be included in anthologies.

During the years 1968 to 1974, Silko wrote and published many short stories and poems that were featured in her Laguna Woman (1974).

Her other publications, include: Laguna Woman: Poems (1974), Ceremony (1977), Storyteller (1981), and, with the poet James A. Wright, With the Delicacy and Strength of Lace: Letters Between Leslie Marmon Silko and James Wright (1985). Almanac of the Dead, a novel, appeared in 1991, and a collection of essays, Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit: Essays on Native American Life Today, was published in 1996.

Silko wrote a screenplay based on the comic book Honkytonk Sue, in collaboration with novelist Larry McMurtry, which has not been produced.

Literary relevance and themes

Throughout her career as a writer and teacher, she has remained grounded in the history-filled landscape of the Laguna Pueblo. Her experiences in the culture have fueled an interest to preserve cultural traditions and understand the impact of the past on contemporary life. A well-known novelist and poet, Silko's career has been characterized by making people aware of ingrained racism and white cultural imperialism, and a commitment to support women's issues. Her novels have many characters who attempt what some perceive a simple yet uneasy return to balance Native American traditions survivalism with the violence of modern America. The clash of civilizations is a continuing theme in the modern Southwest and of the difficult search for balance that the region's inhabitants encounter.

Her literary contributions are particularly important because they open up the Anglo-European prevailing definitions of the American literary tradition to accommodate the often underrepresented traditions, priorities, and ideas about identity that in a general way characterize many American Indian cultures and in a more specific way form the bedrock of Silko's Laguna heritage and experience.