Oliver La Farge

Oliver La Farge , 1901-63, American writer and anthropologist, b. New York City, grad. Harvard (B.A., 1924; M.A., 1929). He conducted three archaeological expeditions to Arizona and also ethnological expeditions to Guatemala and Mexico. La Farge used his field experience to authenticate his reflective stories of Native American habit and character. Laughing Boy (1929), a novel of Navajo life, won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1930. Other works are The Sparks Fly Upward (1931), The Enemy Gods (1937), and the stories All the Young Men (1935). Santa Fe recounts the history of that city.

Bibliography: See his autobiographical Raw Material (1945); biographies by E. Gillis (1967), D. McNickle (1971), and T. M. Pearce (1972).

La Farge, Oliver [Hazard Perry] (1901–63), ethnologist and author, after graduation from Harvard (1924) conducted archaeological investigations in Arizona, Mexico, and Guatemala, and with Frans Blom wrote Tribes and Temples (2 vols., 1925, 1927). Laughing Boy (1929, Pulitzer Prize) is a novel of life among the Navajo Indians, and his later novels include Sparks Fly Upward (1931), set in Central America; Long Pennant (1933), a story of 19th‐century New England seamen; The Enemy Gods (1937), about Navajo inability to adapt to white civilization; and The Copper Pot (1942), about a New England painter in New Orleans. All the Young Men (1935) and A Pause in the Desert (1957) collect stories. As Long as the Grass Shall Grow (1940) surveys the history and conditions of American Indians, and other works of nonfiction include Behind the Mountains (1956), sketches of New Mexico village life in an earlier day, and Santa Fe: The Autobiography of a Southwestern Town (1959), collecting local newspaper comments with a commentary. The Eagle in the Egg (1949) deals with his wartime service as an officer of the air corps, and Raw Material (1945) contains reminiscences of his intellectual development.