Blood Narrative

“Chadwick Allen traces the ‘inseparable triad’ of blood, land, and memory in two cultures and distinct generations of indigenous writers and activists. Blood Narrative is an original, persuasive consideration of Native American Indian and New Zealand Maori tropes of indigenous identity. Natives and the Maori created viable identities in ‘dominant discourses’ during the Second World War, but the pride of national service was not a practicable source of indigenous identities in the simulations of postwar modernity. A generation later identities were constructed by political resistance, literary subversion, and cultural activism. Many writers have asserted ‘blood memory’ as a strategy of contemporary indigenous identity and survivance. Allen provides a cogent, astute critique of these memorable triads and complex turns of identity.”—Gerald Vizenor, University of California, Berkeley

“I cannot think of a more provocative or evocative title for a book that addresses the narrative tactics and activism of indigenous writings. Allen draws upon the tactical differences deployed by American Indian and New Zealand Maori writers to provide insights into the ways that indigenous minority writing has defined an enduring identity of indigeneity. Blood Narrative is elegantly written, provocative in some of its arguments, rich in examples and well worth reading.”—Linda Tuhiwai Smith, The University of Auckland