Zitkala-Ša (Red Bird) (1876–1938), also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, was one of the best-known and most influential Native Americans of the twentieth century. Born on the Yankton Sioux Reservation, she remained true to her indigenous heritage as a student at the Boston Conservatory and a teacher at the Carlisle Indian School, as an activist in turn attacking the Carlisle School, as an artist celebrating Native stories and myths, and as an active member of the Society of American Indians in Washington DC. All these currents of Zitkala-Ša’s rich life come together in this book, which presents her previously unpublished stories, rare poems, and the libretto of The Sun Dance Opera.

Zitkala-Ša is the author of American Indian Stories and Iktomi and the Ducks and Other Sioux Stories, both available in Bison Books editions. P. Jane Hafen (Taos Pueblo) is an associate professor of English at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the coeditor of A Great Plains Reader, available in a Bison Books edition.

“This new collection of previously unpublished writing by Zitkala-Ša (Gertrude Bonnin) marks a milestone in the scholarship of this crucial figure in Native literary and intellectual history. Meticulously researched, editor P. Jane Hafen’s compilation advances our understanding of this Yankton Sioux writer, activist, and artist, about whom little has been documented. . . . This is an indispensable addition to American Indian Studies in general and to Yankton Sioux literary history in particular.”—Great Plains Quarterly

“Hafen has done a great service to the study of American Indian literature by collecting in one book several published and unpublished pieces. . . . A wonderful and enlightening collection.”—Choice