Contents Introduction Chapter I native American Renaissance, its beginning and main representatives of the period

Chapter II Leslie Marmon Silko’s as one of the best authors of the Native American Renaissance, her life and career. The racial conflicts in her novel “Almanac of the Dead”.
2.1. Leslie Marmon Silko is among the best writers of the Native American writers, her life and career.
We can learn about the author’s biography and career with the help of an online encyclopedia called “Britannica” that gives the following information: “Leslie Marmon Silko, (born March 5, 1948, Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.), Native American poet and novelist whose work often centres on the dissonance between American Indian and white cultures.
Silko, of mixed Laguna Pueblo, white, and Mexican ancestry, grew up on the Laguna Pueblo reservation in New Mexico, where she learned Laguna traditions and myths. After attending Bureau of Indian Affairs schools and graduating with honours from the University of New Mexico (B.A., 1969), she entered law school but abandoned her legal studies to do graduate work in English and pursue a writing career. Her first publications were several short stories and the poetry collection Laguna Woman (1974).
Often referred to as the premier Native American writer of her generation, Silko drew on the Laguna stories she had heard in childhood. She combined concerns of Laguna spirituality, such as the relationship between human beings and the natural elements, with complex portrayals of contemporary struggles to retain Native American culture in an Anglo world.
She published the novel Ceremony (1977) to great critical acclaim. It tells the story of the relationship between a returning World War II veteran of mixed Laguna and Anglo heritage and a tribal wise man who teaches him Laguna folklore and ceremonies that help him heal the psychic wounds caused by war. Apart from Silko’s close observation of human nature, Ceremony was also noted for its nonchronological narrative method. In 1981 Silko received a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, and the volume Storyteller, which includes poetry, tribal stories, fiction, and photographs, was published. The Delicacy and Strength of Lace (1985), selected correspondence between herself and nature poet James Wright, followed. Silko’s second novel, Almanac of the Dead (1991), explores themes similar to those found in Ceremony, this time through the lives of two Native American women. Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit (1996) is a collection of essays on contemporary Native American life. In 1999 Silko released Gardens in the Dunes, a novel about a Native American girl who, having been captured by soldiers and separated from her family in the late 19th century, struggles to retain her culture’s traditions. The Turquoise Ledge (2010) is a memoir.
Another website shares with us the next data about the author: “Leslie Marmon Silko (born Leslie Marmon; born March 5, 1948) is a Laguna Pueblo writer and one of the key figures in the First Wave of what literary critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance. Silko was a debut recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Grant, now known as the "Genius Grant", in 1981 and theNative Writers' Circle of the Americas Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994. She currently resides in Tucson, Arizona.