The Way of Kinship: An Anthology of Native Siberian Literature

That these treasures are available to us as writing is a miracle. . . . The writings here, while altogether modern in one sense, are based upon a literature, albeit oral, that has existed for thousands of years. They are the reflections of people who have lived long on the earth, on their own terms, in harmony with the powers of nature. They are invaluable to us who have so much to learn from them. These stories, poems, songs give us a way, a sacred way, into a world that we ought to know for its own sake. It is our own world, after all. -N. Scott Momaday, from the Foreword The first anthology of Native Siberian literature in English,The Way of Kinshiprepresents writers from regions extending from the Ob River in the west to the Chukotka peninsula, the easternmost point of the Siberian Russian Arctic. Drawn from seven distinct ethnic groups, this diverse body of work-prose fiction, poetry, drama, and creative nonfiction-chronicles ancient Siberian cultures and traditions threatened with extinction in the contemporary world. Translated and edited by Alexander Vaschenko and Claude Clayton Smith, leading scholars in Native Siberian literature,The Way of Kinshipis an essential collection that will introduce readers to new writers and new worlds.

Alexander Vaschenko is chair of the Program in Comparative Studies in Literature at Moscow State University. Claude Clayton Smith is professor emeritus of English at Ohio Northern University.
N. Scott Momaday is a Native American (Kiowa) writer. The author of several works of fiction, his novel House Made of Dawn was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969. He received the National Medal of Arts in 2007.