As part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Village of Jemez Springs, the library is sponsoring a “community read” event featuring the work of local resident N. Scott Momaday. We are focusing on two of his books that describe the Jemez Valley: House Made of Dawn and The Names.
MOMADAY READING – Pulitzer Prize-winning author and poet N. Scott Momaday will be the subject of a “community read,” as part of the village’s 50th anniversary celebration. Photo by Robert Borden/Jemez Thunder
Scott will appear at the library from 2-4 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 27, to read from these books and discuss his writing. The idea of a “community read” is that as many people as possible read the same book. In this case, if reading two books sounds a bit much, we urge everyone to read at least a sampling. The library has ordered extra copies.
House Made of Dawn, which won the Pulitzer Price in 1969, tell the story of a young man from Jemez Pueblo, home from World War II and caught between two worlds: one his father’s, the other of industrial America. The Names is Scott’s memoir of growing up in Jemez Pueblo.
Scott was born in 1934 in Lawton, OK, Kiowa country in southwestern Oklahoma. He spent his childhood in several different Southwestern communities (Gallup, Shiprock, Tuba City, Chinle, San Carlos, Hobbs) where he was in close contact with Navajo and San Carlos Apache, as well as Hispanic and Anglo Children. When Momaday was 12, his parents took teaching jobs at Jemez Pueblo. After studying at a Virginia military academy, Scott attended the University of New Mexico (B.A. in political science), the University of Virginia (briefly to study law), and Stanford (M.A. and Ph.D. in English). Scott is a poet, novelist, playwright, storyteller, artist, and a professor of English and American literature. He created the Buffalo Trust, a non-profit foundation for the preservation, protection and return of their cultural heritage to Native peoples, especially children.
