Storytelling
In the "Introduction" to Storyteller, Silko writes about the history and importance of language and storytelling as culture and as a way to survive. She details the importance of storytelling both for all people and specifically for the Laguna people. She writes, “The entire culture, all the knowledge, experience, and beliefs, were kept in the human memory of the Pueblo in the form of narratives that were told and retold from generation to generation."[2] Silko notes that the Laguna people were all responsible for telling stories, which were “narrative accounts of incidents that the teller has experienced or heard about.”[2] She writes that she was lucky to have been born at a time when the older members of her community still would tell stories for the children.[2]
Leslie Marmon Silko in 2011 reading from her memoir The Turquoise Ledge: A Memoir.Oral tradition
Critics have noted the influence of the oral tradition in Storyteller. Paul Lorenz explains in The Other Side of Leslie Marmon Silko's "Storyteller," "For the story, the location of events in time is essentially meaningless."[4] Additionally, Bernard Hirsh notes that “The experience in living the reality revealed in her grandfather’s stories has shown her the oneness of past and present, of historical and mythic time, and of the stories, and the people.”[12]
Even though Silko is inspired by the oral tradition and storytelling, she does not consider herself a traditional storyteller.[18] She noted in an interview with Kim Barnes, "I write them down because I like seeing how I can translate this sort of feeling or flavor or sense of a story that's told and heard on to the page."[18]
