American Narratives

In this new study, Winter recovers the writing of four overlooked American authors from the turn of the twentieth century. In doing so, Winter salvages an early multicultural discourse on assimilation and national belonging that has been largely ignored by literary scholars. Winter shows how these writers fit into and make valuable contributions to the canon of American literary realism. Her subjects include Mary Antin, a Jewish American immigrant from Russia; Zitkala-Sa, a Sioux woman originally from South Dakota; Sutton E. Griggs, an African American from the South; and Sui Sin Far, a biracial Chinese American female writer who lived on the West Coast. Winter succeeds in creating a multi-ethnic dialogue between these writers that demonstrates ways that cultural identity and national belonging are constantly contested in this literature.

Molly Crumpton Winter teaches in the English Department at California State University, Stanislaus.