A Pause in the Desert and Other Stories - La Farge, Oliver

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Résumé :
Oliver La Farge covers many aspects of everyday life in these sixteen stories, which range from an old man facing death alone in the Mexican bush to some boys facing the responsibilities of life at St. Peter's school; from the science fiction world of computing machines to the world of gourmets; and from the violent death of a man off the Rhode Island coast to the quiet death of a marriage in New Mexico. The variety of stories in this wide-ranging collection are sure to fit the taste and mood and any reader interested in the human condition through the clear grace of La Farge's timeless writing.

Biographie:
Born in 1901, Oliver Hazard Perry La Farge is ranked among the literary lions of Southwestern letters. Since he died in 1963, his reputation has continued to grow and new honors have been added to his name. Laughing Boy, a novel of Navajo life, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1930, putting his name in lights before he was 30. His other books include Behind the Mountains, Raw Material: The Autobiographical Examination of an Artist's Journey into Maturity, The Enemy Gods, A Pause in the Desert and Other Stories, Cochise of Arizona, and The Mother Ditch, all available from Sunstone Press.

Sommaire:
Oliver La Farge (1901-1963) was an American novelist, anthropologist, and advocate for Native American rights whose work combined literary craft with ethnographic insight. Born in New York and educated at Harvard, La Farge developed a lifelong interest in the cultures and histories of the American Southwest, particularly the Navajo Nation, where he conducted fieldwork and formed enduring relationships.He achieved national recognition with Laughing Boy (1929), which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and offered a nuanced portrayal of Navajo life during a period of profound cultural disruption. Throughout his career, La Farge sought to counter romanticized or reductive depictions of Indigenous peoples, instead presenting complex characters shaped by both tradition and modern pressures.Beyond his fiction, La Farge was active in political and cultural advocacy, co-founding the Association on American Indian Affairs. His work stands at the intersection of literature, anthropology, and social engagement, reflecting a sustained effort to represent Native American communities with dignity and historical awareness....