The University of Arizona Press

November 14, 2025

Sarah Hernandez, author of We Are the Stars: Colonizing and Decolonizing the Oceti Sakowin Literary Tradition received $150,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation’s Indigenous Knowledge Initiative to publish The Oceti Sakowin Reader: An Anthology of Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota Literature. Hernandez is a citizen of the Sicangu Lakota Oyate; her scholarship and teaching emphasize Native/Indigenous literature, literary criticism, and community-engaged research.

The Oceti Sakowin Reader will expand on these efforts to make Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota literary traditions more accessible to students and educators. “This anthology will help increase access to our vibrant literary tradition so that tribal students can see themselves and their communities positively reflected in their classrooms and textbooks,” said Hernandez.

Hernandez will lead the two-year project in partnership with the Oceti Sakowin Writers Society (OSWS), which will serve as the project’s fiscal sponsor. Inspired by The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature (2019), this anthology will be the first to bring together Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota voices in a single volume. Funding from the Luce Foundation will support editorial development, community-based research, podcast production, and educational materials, ensuring the anthology preserves and shares Oceti Sakowin literature for generations.

Congratulations, Sarah!