Calling for a Blanket Dance

Oscar Hokeah is an Indigenous novelist and a citizen of both the Cherokee Nation and the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma. He has Mexican heritage through his father, who emigrated from Aldama, Chihuahua, Mexico. He holds a BFA in Creating writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, as well as a master’s degree in English with a concentration in Native American literature from the University of Oklahoma. He was the winner of the 2023 PEN/Hemingway Award, a recipient of the Truman Capote Scholarship Award, and a winner of the Native Writer Award through the Taos Summer Writer’s Conference.

Hokeah is a regionalist author dedicated to depicting the life of Indigenous peoples in and around Tahlequah and Lawton, Oklahoma, a space defined by the inter-tribal relations between Kiowa and Cherokee cultures and the trans-national multiculturalism of a population enriched by cross-border migration to and from Mexico. Hokeah draws from his own family history in his writing: His Cherokee relatives make their home in Tahlequah, and his Kiowa relatives are based in Lawton. The Hokeah family, on his Kiowa side, organized the Oklahoma Gourd Dance for more than a decade, and are actively involved in multiple aspects of Kiowa cultural life.