THE SWEET SMELL OF HOME: THE LIFE AND ART OF LEONARD F. CHANA
Susan Lobo’s book, THE SWEET SMELL OF HOME: THE LIFE AND ART OF LEONARD F. CHANA (University of Arizona Press, 2009), written in collaboration with Leonard F. Chana and Barbara Chana was named by the Pima County Public Library as one of the “Southwest books of the Year 2009.” Bill Broyles says “You want to know about the ageless life in the desert? Read this. It’s a joyous passport to the Tohono O’odham Nation…. The paintings and drawings of native artist Leonard Chana jump with life… they are pure delight. And the text? It bounces with the talk of real people, ones you’ll enjoy knowing.” Ethnohistorian Bernard Fontana comments about the book, “Leonard Chana spoke, and painted, from his heart and deep cultural roots… While THE SWEET SMELL OF HOME is about these quintessential desert dwellers, it is also about all of us who find ourselves joined in an enterprise we call life.” And anthropologist Jim Griffith of the Southwest Center called it a “truly generous book… (it) gives us even greater access to the next-door but far-off world of the Tohono O’odham.” Susan Lobo’s other book published in 2009 by Prentice Hall/Pearson is NATIVE AMERICAN VOICES: A READER. This is the third and greatly revised edition written in collaboration with Steve Talbot and Traci L. Morris. It is intended for use primarily in college level introductory courses in American Indian Studies, but is also of real interest to the the general reader. It presents a broad approach to the study of American Indians through the voices and viewpoints of Native Peoples themselves. It includes fifty-six articles, as well as poetry and art, comprehensive overviews beginning each part, and helpful appendices. For more information on these and other books by Susan Lobo, go to her home page at : www.u.arizona.edu/-slobo/
Taken from THE WRITE WORD, the newsletter of The Society of Southwestern Authors Vol. 39. No. 3. June/July 2010
