Leslie Marmon Silko at the NYS Writers Institute in 2007

Leslie Marmon Silko, novelist, essayist, and poet, is a major figure of the Native American literary renaissance. Born in Albuquerque of Pueblo, Anglo, and Mexican ancestry, Silko grew up at Laguna Pueblo where she learned the traditional stories that provide the mythic foundation of her work. Silko's first novel was Ceremony (1977), the tale of a "half-breed" World War II veteran and his battle against personal demons. Ceremony received the American Book Award, sold three quarters of a million copies, and sparked a revolution in Native American literature.