Growing up at the Laguna Pueblo reservation, she attended an Indian school and later attended a school in Albuquerque 50 miles away. After high school she went on to attend the University of New Mexico. Silko published her first work, Tony's Story in 1969 and later wrote her first book Laguna Women Poems in 1974.
In 1977 Silko published her first novel, Ceremony. Ceremony explains how vital storytelling is to the Pueblo culture and how White culture has made many attempts to destroy these stories as well as their ceremonies. Silko's second major novel, Storyteller was published in 1981. It explains the stories about her own family in her Native-American tradition through poetry and prose.
Almanac of the Dead, published in 1991 is Silko's most talked about novel. As one critic wrote, 'this book was written to be discussed.' In this book Silko deals with many issues related to American Indians. The tone of this book is darker than her other works and the characters are more complicated and angry. In 1999 she published her third novel Gardens in the Dunes.
Yellow Woman was first published in 1993, which was followed by Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit, published in 1996. They are both works on Laguna society before Christian missionaries arrived, as well as political statements against racist policies. These two works emphasize the strong connections Silko has to the oral traditions of her past.
"Lullaby," one of the most moving stories in the collection. The story opens with an old woman's recollection of her oldest son who never came back from the army. And the woman whose "life had become memories" moves from the loss of her first son to the loss of her two younger children and even her husband Chato who was like a stranger to her at the end.
The earth is your mother,
she holds you.
The sky is your father,
he protects you.
Sleep,
sleep.
Rainbow is your sister,
she loves you.
The winds are your brothers,
they sing to you.
Sleep,
sleep.
We are together always
We are together always
There never was a time
when this was not so.
Ayah's suffering adds special significance to the song's words, which are appropriate both for the world view they bespeak and for the consolation they provide.
Shanley describes Silko best when she says, "Silko will continue to stand as a visionary, who fought to move us all toward a more compassionate view of the interrelatedness of all things."
How do class status and ethnicity impact the decisions of the characters in the texts we have read so far? Research the class background of the characters from at least two texts to gain insight intp the decisions they come to make.
Possibilities:
What can researching the plight of the Navajo help you understand about Ayah’s character in Silko’s ‘Lullaby”.
What was the world of harlem like for sonny and his brother?how might this have affected their relationship or the decisions they make in Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”?