The 14th SAH Prize for Historical Fiction is awarded to Tommy Orange for There There (Alfred A. Knopf.)
There There is a riveting read from beginning to end. It begins with a meditation on the violence and expropriation at the heart of our national romance of expansion, and takes us into a more recent time when the occupation of Alcatraz Island by Native activists leads to events that culminate years later, at the Oakland Pow Wow.
Orange gives us unforgettable, crisply delineated characters, sharp pacing, and building tension with economy and assurance. There There is fiction unthinkable without the history. It is a triumph.
This is Orange’s first novel.
Orange is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma. Born and raised in Oakland, he lives in Angels Camp, California.
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