ESKIMO FOLKTALES HIGHLIGHT NEW UA PRESS CATALOG

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 4, 1999

Fairbanks, Alaska - Voices from the past tell stories for future generations in "The Eskimo Storyteller: Folktales from Noatak, Alaska, " the newest title available from the University of Alaska Press.

The book is a collection of 188 folktales recorded in 1965 by Edwin S. Hall Jr., during lively sessions with Edna Hunnicutt and Paul Monroe, master storytellers from Noatak. Local translators worked with Hall to ensure accuracy in feeling as well as detail in the English versions of the stories to capture the content, form and expression of the storytellers.

Hall, a well-known anthropologist, was first introduced to the people and cultures of the Arctic in 1959. He returned nearly every year for the next 35 years to continue his studies of the area. The book is illustrated by Claire Fejes, a reknowned Alaskan artist whose works were influenced by time she spent among the people of Noatak. "The Eskimo Storyteller" is just one of many new titles available now in the 1999 University of Alaska catalog of publications.

For more information, call the University of Alaska Press at 907-474-5831 or 1-888-AK-BOOKS (1-888-252-6657), or visit them on the first floor of UAF's Gruening Building.

-30-

CONTACT: UA Press Manager Debbie Gonzales at 907-474-6389.

JCS/2-4-99/99-046