An Oklahoma centennial tribute.

Clark, David Draper

AS 2007 marks the centennial celebration of Oklahoma's statehood, one is reminded of its rich and distinguished literary heritage. The following special section presents in small measure a sampling of texts by or about three of Oklahoma's finest authors: poet, novelist, and musician Joy Harjo; Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, poet, playwright, scholar, and artist N. Scott Momaday; and internationally renowned pulp-fiction writer Jim Thompson. It is significant that the first two of these authors are American Indian in that Oklahoma's literary tradition likely had its beginnings as oral narratives among its indigenous peoples and that Jim Thompson should also be represented, one whose greatness supersedes his life, thereby placing him within a pantheon of Oklahoma-born authors who have come and gone but left an indelible mark on regional, national, and world literature--such cultural icons as Will Rogers, Woody Guthrie, Ralph Ellison, John Berryman, and Lynn Riggs, whose play Green Grow the Lilacs served as the basis for Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's play Oklahoma/, one of the most popular musicals ever produced in the United States. Curiously, the very name Oklahoma ("red people") is attributed to historian Muriel Wright's grandfather, Choctaw chief Allen Wright.

In addition to the outstanding writers born in Oklahoma are those U.S. authors from beyond its borders who have done much to project an image of the state to the rest of the world. Included among them are such early explorers and adventurers as Josiah Gregg and Washington Irving. More contemporary examples include Edna Ferher and John Steinbeck, whose novel Grapes of Wrath, one of the most widely read American classics, has, for better or for worse, indelibly defined Oklahoma--the land and its people---by its image during the Great Depression.

There is yet another class of writers from outside the U.S. who have written about Oklahoma from their own, often distinct vantage points, sometimes without ever having been to the state. Spanish conquistador Francisco Vasquez de Coronado wrote about his travels in 1541 through the territory as did English naturalist Thomas Nuttal. Franz Kafka concludes his novel Amerika (1927) with a chapter mysteriously titled "The Great Nature Theatre of Oklahoma." Numerous other international writers--chief among them guests of World Literature Today--have written poetry and prose about Oklahoma as a result of their visits here. Among the most noteworthy are Nobel laureate Octavio Paz (Mexico), Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina), and Julio Cortazar (Argentina).

Almost two decades before Oklahoma declared statehood in 1907, the State Capital Printing Company of Guthrie, Oklahoma, published what is widely recognized as the first novel to appear in Oklahoma (then identified as Oklahoma Territory), Thomas B. Ferguson's The Jayhawkers (1892). Since then, Oklahoma has produced scores of outstanding and successful authors of fiction (e.g., novels, westerns, mysteries, legal thrillers, and science fiction), poetry, biography, autobiography, drama, history, and journalism, as well as children's and young-adult literature. As WLT enters the twenty-first century, we shall attempt to bring to our readership worldwide more coverage of the often undiscovered literary wealth produced right here at home. (For reviews of Oklahoma authors Rilla Askew and John Milton Oskison in this issue, see pages 58 and 64, respectively.)

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Friends of Libraries in Oklahoma (FOLIO) Literary Landmarks Project (www.okfriends.net)

Marable, Mary Hays, and Elaine Boylan, A Handbook of Oklahoma Writers (University of Oklahoma Press, 1939)

Oklahoma Center for the Book (www.odl.state.ok.us)

Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers (www.poetsandwriters.okstate.edu)

Rodgers, Lawrence R. "Literary People," in Historical Atlas of Oklahoma, 4th ed., ed. Charles Robert Goins & Danney Goble (University of Oklahoma Press, 2006), 230-33

University of Oklahoma Centennial Issue, World Literature Today 64:3 (Summer 1990)