Description: When John Joseph Mathews (1894-1979) began his career as a writer in the 1930s, he was one of only a small number of Native American authors writing for a national audience. Today he is widely recognized as a founder and shaper of twentieth-century Native American literature. Twenty Thousand Mornings is Mathews's intimate chronicle of his formative years. In her insightful introduction and explanatory notes, Susan Kalter places Mathews's work in the context of his life and career as a novelist, historian, naturalist, and scholar. Kalter draws on his unpublished diaries, revealing aspects of his personal life that have previously been misunderstood. In addressing the significance of this posthumous work, she posits that Twenty Thousand Mornings will "challenge, defy, and perhaps redefine studies of American Indian autobiography."
Brief description:
Charles H. Red Corn (1936-2017) was an independent writer living in Norman, Oklahoma. He is a member of the Tzi-zhu-wash-ta-ghi Clan (Peace Clan) of the Osage Tribe.
Review Quotes: Twenty Thousand Mornings is full of rich, witty, and poignant descriptions of daily life in the Osage Nation when Kansas was 'exotic' and 'romantic' and international travel meant going to 'the States.' Mathews takes us into a world where boys and girls play shinny, study 'jography' with the Hussar-like schoolteacher Mrs. Tucker, and flee tornados. We ascend with him into the air above Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas, where he learned to fly for the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War I, and wonder at his casual failure to appear on time at Oxford. Twenty Thousand Mornings, and Susan Kalter's brilliantly researched, painstakingly detailed introduction, will reshape what we think of John Joseph Mathews, the American Indian autobiography tradition, and Native identities and politics before the American Indian literary renaissance."--James H. Cox, author of Muting White Noise: Native American and European Novel Traditions