Tribe Divided by U.S.-Mexico Border Featured in Novel Marking Native American Heritage Month

CHICAGO - Nov. 18, 2019 - PRLog -- Life for the Tohono O'odham Nation pushes on in spite of the line drawn through the middle of the tribe's land that separates its lands between the U.S. and Mexico, but that line may be growing in size as the federal government eyes a larger border wall.
Kansas City-based author Jennifer Leeper spent time in the American Southwest, which left a powerful impression on her, and led to her decision to base her upcoming novel on that specific Native American land that sits in limbo.
"I choose to focus specifically on the Tohono O'odham because of the unique challenges they face as a people living at, and on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border," Leeper said. "The Tohono O'odham Nation's struggle to maintain the historical openness of their particular stretch of borderland—an openness once respected by the United States government—is timely considering the heated exchanges happening around the proposed border wall."
Leeper, an award-winning author, is set to release The Poison of War through Prensa Press Nov. 19 during Native American Heritage Month.
The novel spotlights the landscape of the American Southwest and this unique Native American culture through a murder mystery that brings to the fore timely issues of the U.S.-Mexico border, immigration, drug trafficking and the reservation culture of the Tohono O'odham tribe of southern Arizona.
The crime mystery's unique cultural setting at this point in time in American history aims to not only entertain readers, but to draw attention to the declining independence of this bi-national tribe whose terrain and traditions are being threatened by 63 miles of proposed border fencing.
"Even though I lived there only a brief time, the American Southwest made a powerful impression on me. It haunts me in the best possible way, offering a fertile place, both literally and figuratively, for much of my fiction to grow," Leeper said. "The people of the Southwest—particularly the indigenous peoples, the desert and the intersection of both are in many ways what gives my writing life its continued momentum."
For more information visit http://www.thepoisonofwar.com or http://www.prensa.press