Author Background

Leslie Marmon Silko (1948- ) was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but was raised in Laguna Pueblo. She is a talented poet and prose writer, whose work incorporates elements of Native American storytelling traditions. Silko describes a lively childhood spent outdoors, one which included riding horses and hunting deer. Although Silko enjoys one-fourth Pueblo ancestry, she also shares Mexican ancestry; Silko did not live on the Laguna Pueblo reservation, and Silko was not allowed to participate in many Pueblo rituals.

Through the fourth grade, she attended a Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) school, only to later commute to Manzano Day School, a Catholic private school in Albuquerque. After high school, Silko enrolled at the University of New Mexico, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in English.

Writing Career

After college, Silko taught creative writing courses at the University of New Mexico before enrolling in their American Indian law program. As her literary career blossomed, Silko dropped out to focus on her writing. Silko would later spend several years as a professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where she currently resides.

In 1974, she published several stories in Kenneth Rosen’s anthology, The Man to Send Rain Clouds: Contemporary Stories by American Indians. Her first novel, Ceremony, a World War II veteran’s attempts to find peace after the war, was published in 1977, to critical acclaim. The novel led to Silko being awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1981.

Silko is celebrated for her lyrical, experimental works that explore the complexities of identity and self-expression through a fusion of Native American beliefs, stories, and traditions. Her novels, such as Ceremony and Almanac of the Dead, have become foundational texts for many indigenous studies departments and have endured as some of the most important works of Native American literature.

“Yellow Woman”

In her writing, Silko commonly addresses ideas of healing and reconciling conflicts (cultural, spiritual, and internal). “Yellow Woman” was first published in The Man to Send Rain Clouds: Contemporary Stories by American Indians. It is one of her most commonly anthologized pieces. In “Yellow Woman,” Silko is able to merge traditional Pueblo legends with a contemporary tale.

Part action/adventure story and part mythology, “Yellow Woman” seamlessly tells the tale of a narrator who may or may not be caught up in Laguna ancestral lore. In the story, Silko explores the Laguna tradition of Yellow Woman, who is often abducted, taken to the spirit world, and later returns with a great power that helps her people. Whether or not the characters from the story are Yellow Woman and other spirits is something that Silko does not clarify. The uncertainty is a compelling aspect of the story.

You can borrow and read Leslie Marmon Silko’s “Yellow Woman” by clicking the link below and creating a free account:

Silko, Leslie Marmon. “Yellow Woman.” Storyteller, New York : Penguin Books, 2012, pp. 52–60. Internet Archive, http://archive.org/details/storyteller0000silk_i4k4.

Sources

Berke, Amy et al.  Writing the Nation: A Concise Introduction to American Literature 1865 to Present.  University of North Georgia Press, 2015.  https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/writing-the-nation-a-concise-introduction-to-american-literature-1865-to-present, CCA-SA 4.0

Silko, Leslie Marmon. “Yellow Woman.” Storyteller, New York : Penguin Books, 2012, pp. 52–60.

Silko, Leslie Marmon. “Yellow Woman.” Storyteller, Internet Archive, uploaded by station30.cebu, 8 Oct. 2021, http://archive.org/details/storyteller0000silk_i4k4.

Turlington, Anita et al.  Compact Anthology of World Literature II.  University of North Georgia Press, 2022, https://alg.manifoldapp.org/projects/compact-anthology-of-world-literature-ii, CCA-SA 4.0