Zitkala Sa [Gertrude Simmons Bonnin] (February 22, 1816–January 26, 1938)

Zitkala Sa was a pioneer among Native American writers; elements of contemporary Native American literature can be found in her limited body of work. Her writing reflects her emotionalism about her traditional society and the cultural confusion of her own life, and it demonstrates her anger at the injustices dealt to the Native American. The tone of her work is sentimental, didactic, and inflammatory. Although she wrote as an American Indian and a female at a time when few similar voices were being heard, she did not flinch, nor did she moderate her voice.