雷贝嘉·罗恩霍尔斯

Rebecca Roanhorse (née Parish; born 23 September 1971) is an American science fiction and fantasy writer from New Mexico.

She has written short stories and science fiction novels featuring Navajo and other indigenous American characters. A Hugo and Nebula award winner, she has been lauded for expansion and modernization of Indigenous myth. Her enrollment status with tribal nations has been the subject of media scrutiny. Her best known works include Trail of Lightning and Black Sun.

Early life and education

Roanhorse was born in Conway, Arkansas, in 1971. She has said that she is of Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo descent through her mother's family, and African American on her father's side. She was adopted as a child by white parents and raised in northern Texas. Roanhorse has described "being a black and Native kid in Fort Worth in the '70s and '80s" as "pretty limiting." She turned to reading and writing, especially science fiction, as a form of escape. Her father was an economics professor, and her mother was a high school English teacher who encouraged Rebecca's early attempts at writing stories.

Indigenous identity

In a 2020 profile by Vulture, Roanhorse stated at seven years old she learned of her ancestry from looking at her birth certificate. While living and working in New York City, she hired a private investigator to track down her birth mother. The resulting reunion was uncomfortable, as her birth and adoption had been a secret. According to the Vulture profile, "Her birth father, a minister, had never learned of her existence. Neither had most of her mother’s extended family—conservative Pueblo Catholics from New Mexico. One of her aunts, a former nun, later told her, 'It would be better if you went away.'"

Roanhorse graduated from Yale University and earned a master’s degree in theology at Union Theological Seminary. She worked briefly as a computer programmer on Wall Street. Later, after meeting her birth mother, she earned her JD degree from the University of New Mexico School of Law, specializing in Federal Indian Law and lived for several years on the Navajo Nation. She clerked at the Navajo Supreme Court before working as an attorney.

Dispute of identity

After Roanhorse began publishing and public speaking, her enrollment in the community was questioned. Leaders of the Ohkay Owingeh community have stated that Roanhorse is not enrolled there and has no connection to their community.

Dr. Matthew Martinez, former Lieutenant Governor of Ohkay Owingeh, welcomed Roanhorse on her first and only visit to the community, in 2018, and spent time with her. He said, "I recognize that adoption is an emotional experience for families and communities and especially those who have been adopted out with no real connection to home....At Ohkay Owingeh, our current enrollment process privileges family lineage and not blood quantum." Agoyo explained that "anyone who descends from an Ohkay family—as Roanhorse has publicly claimed—can become a citizen. But Martinez said the author has chosen a different path." Martinez continued, "by not engaging in any form of cultural and community acknowledgement, Roanhorse has failed to establish any legitimate claim to call herself Ohkay Owingeh." He eventually concluded, "It is unethical for Roanhorse to be claiming Ohkay Owingeh and using this identity to publish Native stories."

However, in an essay in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Adrian L. Jawort disputed the idea that Roanhorse's couldn't claim her Native identity. Jawort, a Northern Cheyenne journalist and fiction writer, said that "Several Native writers and academics have told me in confidence that they feel accusations of appropriation against Roanhorse are unwarranted." And Kayla Shaggy, a Diné and Anishinaabe Two-Spirit artist, attributed the backlash over Roanhorse's Native identity to "intense anti-Black racism in Indian Country."

Career

Roanhorse had tried to write fantasy stories since her childhood and, as she told The New York Times, initially worked on "Tolkien knockoffs about white farm boys going on journeys", because she figured that is what readers wanted.

In August 2017, Roanhorse's short story "Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™" was published in Apex Magazine. Her first novel Trail of Lightning was published on June 26, 2018, with a sequel, titled Storm of Locusts, published the year after. The series is an urban fantasy story set in Dinétah, formerly the Navajo reservation in the Southwestern United States, starring a Navajo character fighting in a post-apocalyptic world inhabited by Native American gods and monsters. Roanhorse also wrote the Between Earth and Sky series, beginning with Black Sun released in October 2020, and followed by Fevered Star (2022) and Mirrored Heavens (2024). The series is set in an secondary fantasy world inspired by various pre-Columbian American cultures.

In March 2020, it was announced that "Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™" was optioned by Amazon Studios for a potential film adaption. In December 2021, the rights for Black Sun were auctioned by AMC Studios to be adapted as a television series.

Roanhorse also wrote the Star Wars novel Resistance Reborn, published in November 2019, which is bridging the gap between the films Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi and Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker. Her second Star Wars novel Reign of the Empire: Edge of Abyss is set to be published in fall 2026. The second installment in the Reign of the Empire trilogy, it serves as a prequel of the television series Andor.

On August 19, 2020, Roanhorse was announced as a contributing writer to Marvel Comics' Marvel's Voices: Indigenous Voices #1 anthology, which was released in November 2020. She wrote a story about Echo, joined by Weshoyot Alvitre on art.

Roanhorse was also a writer on the first season of the 2023 television miniseries A Murder at the End of the World and the 2024 Marvel Cinematic Universe miniseries Echo.