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BIO
Tony Hillerman (1925–2008), an Albuquerque, New Mexico, resident since 1963, was the author of 29 books, including the popular 17-mystery series featuring Navajo police officers Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn, two non-series novels, two children’s books, and nonfiction works. He had received every major honor for mystery fiction; awards ranging from the Navajo Tribal Council's commendation to France's esteemed Grand prix de litterature policiere. Western Writers of America honored him with the Wister Award for Lifetime achievement in 2008. He served as president of the prestigious Mystery Writers of America, and was honored with that group’s Edgar Award and as one of mystery fiction’s Grand Masters. In 2001, his memoir, SELDOM DISAPPOINTED, won both the Anthony and Agatha Awards for best nonfiction.
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AUTHOR TALK
Welcome
When I needed such a cop for what I intended to be a very minor character in THE BLESSING WAY, this sheriff came to mind, I added on Navajo cultural and religious characteristics, and he became Leaphorn in fledgling form. Luckily for me and Leaphorn and all of us, the late Joan Kahn, then Mystery Editor of what was then Harper & Row, required some substantial rewriting of that manuscript to bring it up to standards and I--having begun to see the possibilities of Leaphorn--gave him a much better role in the rewrite and made him more Navajo.
Jim Chee emerged several books later. I like to claim he was born from an artistic need for a younger, less sophisticated fellow to make the plot of PEOPLE OF DARKNESS make sense--and that is mostly true. Chee is a mixture of a couple of hundred of those idealistic, romantic, reckless youngsters I had been lecturing to at the University of New Mexico, with their yearnings for Miniver Cheever's "Days of Old" modified into his wish to keep the Navajo Value System healthy in universe of consumerism.
I'll confess here that Leaphorn is the fellow I'd prefer to have living next door and that we share an awful lot of ideas and attitudes. I'll admit that Chee would sometime test my patience, as did those students upon whom I modeled him. But both of them in their ways, represent the aspects of the Navajo Way, which I respect and admire. And I will also confess that I never start one of these books in which they appear without being motivated by a desire to give those who read them at least some insight into the culture of a people who deserve to be much better understood.
--- Tony Hillerman
Browse Tony Hillerman's books on Amazon.com.
© Copyright 2002, HarperCollins. All rights reserved.
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