Thomas King and The Truth about Stories
Thomas King (Cherokee) was born in California in 1943, but moved to Canada in 1980, where he is currently Professor of English at the University of Guelph and is involved politically in the New Democratic Party. Learn more about his life and works at the following links:
First Nations Drum article about King
King mentions several photographers in chapter two. You can learn more about the people he mentions using the following links:
Edward S. Curtis in Context--an online exhibit from the Library of Congress
Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian--a digital edition of Curtis's 20-volume work, prepared by Northwestern University
Richard Throssel: Photographer of the Crows, from the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming
The Outsider and the Native Eye: The Photographs of Richard Throssel, created by Valerie Daniels
Names of other prominent figures come up in King's book, and you can find out more about some of these figures by following the link listed below:
The Official Will Rogers site
The site for the Will Rogers Memorial Museums
The Story of Ishi: A Chronology, by Nancy Rockafellar, from the UC-San Francisco website
See photographs of Ishi online
NativeWiki entry for Louis Owens
Remembering Louis Owens, by Glen Martin of the San Francisco Chronicle
Readers' reactions to The Truth about Stories--
See responses from students in Paul Martin's class at the University of Vermont in 2007
House of Anansi Press, which published King's book in Canada, hosted an online response forum in 2003
Need another copy of the study questions for Thomas King's book? Click here to access a pdf (Adobe Acrobat) version.
This page was last updated on 25 August
2008. Send questions/comments to
Nancy J. Peterson.