ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses novels by Linda Hogan (Chickataw Nation, North America), Chi Zijian (Evenki nation, China), and Alexis Wright (Waanyi Nation, Australia). It includes women’s relations with animals and the land, and the combined silencing of them, including through sexual violence. It also explores women as shamans and healers, taking the overwhelming unbalance of the world upon their bodies and children, in an ambiguous role between empowerment and self-sacrifice. Whereas pan-Indigeneity was previously cautioned against for its reductionist and stereotypical tendencies, it is used by these three authors to extend a new paradigm respectful of the environment, humans and other animals, and our shared future. Their novels innovate formally in order to act politically through story. Considering novels from places not typically associated with Indigenous peoples (such as China) may strengthen the pan-Indigenous paradigm. Comparing three female novelists emphasizes how women are forging this paradigm in thought, words, and action. Inspired by Indigenous criticism, this is a socioliterature approach, linked to narrative medicine, ecocriticism, and traumatic memory. This new interpretation of literary depictions of women’s bodies participates in an ecocritical conversation on enacting radical social change, including through a new/old pan-Indigenous paradigm. As a work of socioliterature, this chapter highlights the useful links authors make between literature and life.
