THE MAN TO SEND RAIN CLOUDS: Contemporary...

THE MAN TO SEND RAIN CLOUDS: Contemporary Stories by American Indians edited by Kenneth Rosen (Penguin: $9; 178 pp . ). The idea of compiling an anthology devoted to Native-American writers was considered innovative when this collection first appeared in 1974. Two decades later, “Rain Clouds” offers striking visions of tribal life, on and off the reservations. In “Yellow Woman,” Leslie Silko links the everyday world of the 20th Century to the mythic time of ancestral legends: When a modern Navajo woman refuses to accept the presence of an amorous ka’tsina spirit, he replies, “But someday they will talk about us, and they will say, ‘Those two lived long ago when things like that happened.’ ” Recent publications suggest that Amerindian authors remain underrepresented in mainstream fiction: A companion volume to “Rain Clouds” is overdue.