Janet Campbell Hale

Native American poet and novelist

Written by

Neal Lynch

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

History

Janet Campbell Hale (born January 11, 1946, Riverside, California, U.S.—died November 23, 2021, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho) was a Native American author whose writings often blend personal memoir with stories of her ancestors.

Hale, whose father was a member of the Coeur d’Alene tribe and whose mother was of Kutenai and Irish heritage, was raised on the Coeur d’Alene Reservation in Idaho and the Yakima Reservation in Washington. Her upbringing was difficult, according to Hale; her family was very poor, and her father was an alcoholic who was physically and verbally abusive. She dropped out of school after eighth grade. She married in 1964, but the relationship soon became abusive and ended in divorce the following year, after the birth of a son. At age 18 she returned to formal education, attending San Francisco City College and then transferring to the University of California, Berkeley, where she received a bachelor’s degree in 1972. She received a master’s degree from the University of California, Davis, in 1984.

Hale’s first published work appeared in 1972 in an anthology of poems by young Native American writers. She then published her first novel, The Owl’s Song (1974); the book of poems Custer Lives in Humboldt County & Other Poems (1978); and the novel The Jailing of Cecelia Capture (1985), her master’s thesis, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Hale’s other works of fiction included Women on the Run (1999), which contains six short stories. Bloodlines: Odyssey of a Native Daughter (1993) is a collection of autobiographical essays that reflect on her past and her heritage, with accounts of her paternal grandmother, who was a follower of the Nez Percé leader known as Chief Joseph.