Ceremony: (Penguin Orange Collection) (Paperback)

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Staff Reviews


Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko is her classic novel set in New Mexico’s Laguna Pueblo Reservation. Tayo returns from WWII with tormenting memories.  He has seen and felt much pain, the violent death of fellow soldiers, the Baatan Death March, the horrific end of the war with Japan, things no one should endure.  White medicine only deadens his senses.  Back on the reservation he seeks that numbness in alcohol along with other Native American Soldiers.  His home has changed while he was away, too, and now he must reckon with this new situation.  Eventually Tayo will seek the help of a Shaman to perform a ceremony and help restore balance to their world.  Native American legends are part of the story.  Tayo has many adventures, including a hair raising cattle drive.  If you are interested in Native America literature, this is a beautifully written novel of great power.

 

— Deon Stonehouse

Description


The great Native American Novel of a battered veteran returning home to heal his mind and spirit, from celebrated author Leslie Marmon Silko

Decades after its original publication, Ceremony remains one of the most profound and moving works of Native American literature—a novel that is itself a ceremony of healing. Tayo, a World War II veteran of mixed ancestry, returns to the Laguna Pueblo Reservation. He is deeply scarred by his experience as a prisoner of the Japanese and further wounded by the rejection he encounters from his people. Only by immersing himself in the Indian past can he begin to regain the peace that was taken from him. Masterfully written, filled with the somber majesty of Pueblo myth, Ceremony is a work of enduring power. This Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition contains a new preface by the author and an introduction by Larry McMurtry.

Part of the Penguin Orange Collection, a limited-run series of twelve influential and beloved American classics in a bold series design offering a modern take on the iconic Penguin paperback.

Winner of the 2016 AIGA + Design Observer 50 Books | 50 Covers competition

About the Author


Leslie Marmon Silko was born in New Mexico in 1948. She is the author of ten books of fiction, poetry, and memoir, including Ceremony, Storyteller, Almanac of the Dead, and The Turquoise Ledge. Considered by many as one of the most important contemporary Native American writers, Silko's honors include a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Pushcart Prize for Poetry, and a Rosewater Foundation grant. She has been named a Living Cultural Treasure by the New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities Council, and has also received the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas Lifetime Achievement Award.

Praise For…


Praise for Ceremony:

"An exceptional novel—a cause for celebration."The Washington Post Book World

"Her assurance, her gravity, her flexibility are all wonderful gifts."The New York Review of Books

"The novel is very deliberately a ceremony in itself—demanding but confident and beautifully written." The Boston Globe

"Ceremony is the greatest novel in Native American literature. It is one of the greatest novels of any time and place. I have read this book so many times that I probably have it memorized. I teach it and I learn from it and I am continually in awe of its power, beauty, rage, vision, and violence." —Sherman Alexie

"Without question Leslie Marmon Silko is the most accomplished Native American writer of her generation." The New York Times Book Review
Product Details
ISBN: 9780143129462
ISBN-10: 0143129465
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Publication Date: October 18th, 2016
Pages: 272
Language: English
Series: Penguin Orange Collection