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Growing up as a biracial kid with white parents in Fort Worth, Texas, hadnt been easy.
From her birth certificate, Roanhorse learned that she was half-Black and halfSpanish Indian.
For many years, that was all she knew.
But, in her late 20s, she began to dream about meeting her birth mother.
I became obsessed with this idea that I needed to find her, Roanhorse said.
It was strange and a little bit thrilling, she said.
But not everyone in the family was pleased that shed tracked them down.
On that first trip home, she learned shed been a secret baby.
Her birth father, a minister, had never learned of her existence.
Neither had most of her mothers extended family conservative Pueblo Catholics from New Mexico.
Roanhorse is speaking from her home in Santa Fe, overlooking the Sun and Moon mountains.
She lives there with her husband, a Dine (or Navajo) artist, and their 12-year-old daughter.
She rarely speaks with her birth mother.
Some have compared it to the monumental achievements of N.K.
Jemisin and George R.R.
Screen adaptations of several projects are already underway.
But within Native communities, the books reception has been mixed.
Some have even expressed doubts about Roanhorses Native ancestry and her right to tell Native stories at all.
Native identity is exceptionally complex.
It consists of hundreds of cultures, each of which has its own customs.
Im always writing outsiders, she says.
Their journey is usually about coming home, and sometimes they wished theyd stayed away.
After she met her birth mother, Roanhorse blew up her life.
She was already on her second career by then.
But her work felt pointless.
As she saw it, she was just helping to make rich white dudes richer.
I wanted to do something useful for my people, she says.
It was like coming home, she said.
There was family and there was community.
She didnt finish her first novel until she was in her mid-40s.
In July of 2016, she began querying agents.
That summer, N.K.
Roanhorses agent, Sara Megibow, plucked the manuscript out of the slush pile in her in-box.
I read 20,000 queries a year and sign maybe three to four clients from that.
I just fell in love, Megibow told me.
It was a unique voice and truly superior writing.
Hed spent a few weeks living on the Navajo reservation when he was in college and recognized the landscape.
It was so deep on the manuscript wish list that I never thought it would happen, he said.
As soon as he finished reading it, he reached out to Megibow with an offer.
Within the week, hed offered Roanhorse a two-book deal.
She wanted to confirm she got the story right.
Reese had a reputation for taking writers to task for misusing Native stories.
She loved the book and wrote an ecstatic review for the Barnes & Noble blog.
Roanhorse lifts Indigenous readers, she declared, giving us a brilliant mirror that made my Indigenous heart soar.
After Jon Davis, the director of the M.F.A.
They were disturbed, he said.
She decided to pass on the invitation.
I certainly dont want to walk into some kind of ambush, she wrote to Davis.
A few weeks later, Reese published a retraction of her positive review.
This critique didnt disrupt Roanhorses career.
These projects have only further incensed her critics, who feel she dismissed their complaints without listening.
In recent months, the conversation has become more pointed.
An article published this summer declared her the Elizabeth Warren of the Sci-Fi set.
The anti-Black sentiments that colonization baked into Indigenous governing structures are still being perpetuated by Native communities.
We recognize Roanhorse as a Black Indigenous author, Jake Skeets, a Dine poet, told me.
We have stories that are very worthy of being told, because theyre so cinematic, so epic.
Yes, we need to maintain the tradition and the culture.
programs and share a particular view of what Native literature should be.
Navajo kids read Percy Jackson in their classrooms, which is fun, she said.
Why wouldnt we want that?
This is what I get to see when I drink my coffee in the morning, she said.
Roanhorse has been spending a lot of time out there lately.
The conversation around her identity summons unwelcome thoughts about the messiness of her family history.
I cannot write down my bloodline in a way that will satisfy them, she says bluntly.
But when the conversation turns toward the fracturing of her own family, she becomes overwhelmed.
This is all so violent, she said, removing her glasses and wiping her eyes.
They were used to breed Natives out of existence, Roanhorse said.
I understand the history.
One morning, Roanhorse shows me around her Pueblo Revival house.
This is one of my favorite works, she says, with a low laugh, her dimples showing.
Some of my critics are like,We dont do that with our gods.
Her voice turns flutelike, gently offering a retort.
Yes, you do all the time!
This is a contemporary interpretation, clearly.
I love these pop-cultural interpretations of traditional stories, she says.
It keeps us looking to the future.
It says,Hey, were part of the culture too.Were not stuck in the 1800s.
Weve adapted to so much to make it survive.
This is just one more way we adapt.
