With his stunning debut novel, There There, Tommy Orange asks readers to examine their assumptions about who Native Americans are and how and where they live. The fierce and sorrowful novel grapples with the complex and painful history of a multigenerational Native American family living in Oakland, at once celebrating their rich spiritual heritage and illuminating the profound consequences of systematic discrimination. A recent graduate from the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Orange is a member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. He does not take the responsibilities and impact of his public voice lightly, telling PBS that “when people think the only way to be Native or the only way to look Native is based on a historical, head-dressed feathered image, you have already disappeared.”
