Historical Fiction

Okla Hannali

Okla Hannali was first written in 1963. It was a torturous undertaking even though it wasn’t much more than an overflowing of crammed notebooks: I wasn’t a very good novel writer at that time. It has since been completely rewritten twice. In the various writings of it and studies for it, I have picked up quite a bit of the non-Indian history of my own region also.

—R. A. Lafferty
Tulsa, Oklahoma

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Fagin the Thief
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Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist 2024

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The Seventh Veil of Salome
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Marilyn Marks
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Let the Dead Bury the Dead
Allison Epstein
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The Prince of Prohibition (#1)
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Second Sons
Alcott Hall (#3)
Emily Rath
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Courting Dragons (#1)
Jeri Westerson
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Right Back Where We Started From
Joy Lanzendorfer
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A Tip for the Hangman
Allison Epstein
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The Survival of Margaret Thomas
Del Howison
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Finding Eleanor
Catelyn Wilson
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Alternate Peace
Joshua Palmatier
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Novellas
Jesus and the Eightfold Path
Lavie Tidhar
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1998 World Fantasy Award Winner

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The Summer Isles
Ian R. MacLeod
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Wall, Stone, Craft
Walter Jon Williams
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Airman Mortensen
Michael Blake
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Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
Simon R. Green
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Trail: The Story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
Louis Charbonneau
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Privateers & Gentlemen Series
Cat Island (#5)
Walter Jon Williams
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The Macedonian (#4)
Walter Jon Williams
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Brig of War (#3)
Walter Jon Williams
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The Tern Schooner (#2)
Walter Jon Williams
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To Glory Arise (#1)
Walter Jon Williams
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Compulsion
Meyer Levin
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The Harvest
Meyer Levin
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The Spell of Time
Meyer Levin
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The Settlers
Meyer Levin
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Okla Hannali
R.A. Lafferty
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Down from the Mountain
Louis Charbonneau
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Citizens
Meyer Levin
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The Old Bunch
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Anthologies
Classic Chassidic Tales
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Reviews

"This curious and wonderful tall tale contributes to the apocalyptic revision of American history that began with LITTLE BIG MAN and BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE. It's the tale of Hannali Innominee, a 'Mingo' or natural lord of the 19th-century Choctaw Indian [and] a capacious, indomitable giant of the ilk of Paul Bunyan [...] Lafferty tells it straight: how the Choctaw nation, once removed, reconstituted itself and thrived in Indian territory [...] how there came a schism between the rich, part-white, slave-owning, moneylending Choctaws and the 'feudal, compassionate, chauvinistic' full-blooded freeholders like Hannali; and how during the Cilv War, the Indians were manipulated divide-and-conquer fashion in helping destroy each other."
Kirkus

"[OKLA HANNALI] is elemental Americana and a great deal of fun."
Wall Street Journal

"The use of the epic form is unusual and effective, and Lafferty's humor is both subtle and boisterous: he writes with warmth and sympathy for the Indian. This is a valuable addition to the growing literature on the subject."
Library Journal

“It’s an American classic.”
Voice Literary Supplement

The history of the Choctaw Indians has been told before and is still being told, but it has never been told in the way Lafferty tells it [...] Hannali is a buffalo bull of a man who should become on of the enduring characters in the literature of the American Indian.
Dee Brown, historian and author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

Okla Hannali

Reviews

Awards & Accolades

Rights