Growth out of loss: The urban discourses of literatures of the Native American and Māori literary renaissance

Abstract

The seeds of the Native American and Māori Renaissance eras germinated amid sweeping changes in the years immediately following World War II, a time when urbanization and the consequent separation of indigenous peoples from community networks represented a major threat to culturally embedded certainties and destabilized romanticized notions of the past. This article explores parallels between the ways in which Native American and Māori literatures reflect the impact of urbanization at the height of this era and the contribution the authors make to the positive cultural growth that defines their respective renaissance periods.