When My Brother Was an Aztec

Natalie Diaz
Adult Nonfiction - 811.6 Dia

"I write hungry sentences," Natalie Diaz once explained in an interview, "because they want more and more lyricism and imagery to satisfy them." This debut collection is a fast-paced tour of Mojave life and family narrative: A sister fights for or against a brother on meth, and everyone from Antigone, Houdini, Huitzilopochtli, and Jesus is invoked and invited to hash it out. These darkly humorous poems illuminate far corners of the heart, revealing teeth, tails, and more than a few dreams.


Nonfiction by Native American Authors

  • Whereas


  • Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses


  • My Body is a Book of Rules


  • The Broken Cord


  • God is Red: A Native View of Religion


  • The Turquoise Ledge


  • Abandon Me: Memoirs


  • Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers: Poems


  • Our History is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance


  • The Winona LaDuke Reader: A Collection of Essential Writings


  • When My Brother Was an Aztec


  • Black Elk Speaks


  • The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America


  • Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West


  • Nature Poem


  • The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present


  • The Right to be Cold: One Woman's Fight to Protect the Arctic and Save the Planet from Climate Change


  • Original Local: Indigenous Foods, Stories, and Recipes from the Upper Midwest


  • Crazy Brave: A Memoir


  • Heart Berries


  • Our Stories Remember: American Indian History, Culture, and Values through Storytelling


  • Men We Reaped: A Memoir


  • Native Voices: Indigenous American Poetry, Craft and Conversations


  • Favor of Crows: New and Collected Haiku


  • As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock


  • Dreaming in Indian: Contemporary Native American Voices


  • American Indian Stories


  • The Way to Rainy Mountain


  • #NotYourPrincess: Voices of Native American Women


  • The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America


  • Lakota Woman