Beyond the Four Corners of the World: A Navajo Woman's Journey

by Emily Benedek

Reprint of a 1995 biography of a contemporary woman, which also contains a lesson about the power of the past. Tells the story of Ella Bedonie, who was born on the Navajo Indian reservation in Arizona and found herself forced to balance her religious beliefs and family ties with the lures of materialism and modernity when a government relocation program moved her family into a suburban housing development. Woven through her story--a tale of negotiating the distance between the sacred and the profane--is her father's narrative of her parents' own life and times. Lacks an index. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Genres: Indigenous, Nonfiction

343 pages, Paperback

First published August 22, 1995

About the author

Emily Benedek graduated from Harvard College. Her articles and essays have appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Vogue, The Dallas Morning News, Mosaic, Tablet magazine, and on NPR, among others. Her first book, The Wind Won’t Know Me: A History of the Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute (Alfred a. Knopf, Inc.), was a finalist for the Robert F. Kennedy Book Prize. Her books include Beyond the Four Corners of the World: A Navajo Woman’s Journey (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.), and a memoir, Through the Unknown, Remembered Gate (Schocken). She is also the author of Red Sea (St. Martins Press), a thriller about terrorism and counter-terrorism, and Hometown Betrayal: A Tragic Story of Secrecy and Abuse in Mormon Country, an Amazon Best Seller. She has two daughters and lives in New York City. For more information, go to www.emilybenedek.com

Reviews

[Kristen]

It's weird looking at this cover of my grandmother and reading the english version... my grandma has nothing to do with this book. The English title is "Beyond The Four Corners Of The World: A Navajo Woman's Journey" and it's about Ella Bedonie. I just don't understand why her picture is the book cover...