The star of the Cherokee
The Star of the Cherokee (English original title: The Education of Little Tree ) is a novella that Asa Earl Carter wrote under the pseudonym Forrest Carter . It was published by Delacorte Press in 1976. Many of the readers were taken with the message conveyed (simple life, appreciation of traditions, love for nature). However, controversy arose when a 1991 New York Times article "The Transformation of a Klansman" published by history professor Dan T. Carter stated that the author was a member of the Ku Klux Klan .
action
The novella begins in the 1930s when five-year-old Little Tree moves in with his Cherokee grandparents. These teach the boy valuable lessons about nature, spirituality, Cherokee life, and life in the mountains. The grandfather secretly distilled whiskey at the time of Prohibition, but is portrayed as personable and generous. Little Tree is taken from his grandparents and taken to an orphanage. There he is confronted with prejudices about the Indians. Finally his grandfather frees him.
controversy
A controversy arose when the true identity of Asa Earl Carter was revealed. The charge was made that Indians were portrayed in the book as " noble savages ". The author was also accused of falsely making his book look like memoirs. In fact, the plot of the book is fictitious.
literature
- Dan T. Carter: The Transformation of a Klansman . In: New York Times , October 4, 1991.
- Southern History, American Fiction: The Secret Life of Southwestern Novelist Forrest Carter. In: Rewriting the South: History and Fiction, ed. Lothar Honnighausen, Valeria Gennaro Lerda. Francke, Tübingen 1993, pp. 286-304.
- Henry Louis Gates Jr .: 'Authenticity', or the Lesson of Little Tree . In: New York Times Book Review , Nov. 24, 1991.
- Randall Dave: The tall tale of Little Tree and the Cherokee who was really a Klansman
- Mark McGurl : Learning from Little Tree: The Political Education of the Counterculture . In: Yale Journal of Criticism , Case 1234, Johns Hopkins University