Leslie  Marmon  Silko  was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1948, to a family of mixed white and native blood. Soon afterward she moved to the Laguna Pueblo of northern New Mexico. Her great-grandfather Robert G. Marmon had come to the pueblo in 1872, and took as his wife a Laguna woman, Marie Anaya. Silko's Marmon ancestors, Protestants from Ohio, had served terms as pueblo governors, and had had some part in undermining traditional ways in the Laguna pueblo. As a child, Silko grew up speaking Keresan, but her formal education—first at a Bureau of Indian Affairs school on the pueblo and then at Catholic schools in Albuquerque—immersed her in Anglophone culture and the English language. She attended the University ofNew Mexico, graduated in 1969, attended law school, and began teaching atNavajo Community College in Tsaile, Arizona.

In 1969 Silko published her first story, "The...