Zitkala-Sa Biography

Zitkála-Šá (1876–1938) (Lakota: Red Bird), also known by the missionary-given and later married name Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, was a Sioux (Yankton Dakota) writer, editor, musician, teacher, and political activist. She wrote several works chronicling her youthful struggles with identity and pulls between the majority culture and her Native American heritage. Her later books in English were among the first works to bring traditional Native American stories to a widespread white readership, and she has been noted as one of the most influential Native American activists of the twentieth century