Gloryland, A Novel By Shelton Johnson

About Gloryland

Born on Emancipation Day, 1863, to a sharecropping family of African and Indian blood, Elijah Yancy never lived as a slave, but his self-image as a free person is at war with his surroundings: Spartanburg, South Carolina, in the Reconstructed South. Exiled for his own survival as a teenager, Elijah walks west to the Nebraska plains and, like other rootless young African-American men of that era, joins the U.S. Cavalry.

·Read more.
·Read an exerpt from the book in Sierra magazine.

Praise for Gloryland:

"This is a work of extraordinary imagination and sympathy, a journey from slavery to the mountaintop, perfectly realized, with a voice so new and honest and insightful that the forward momentum which is Elijah Yancy will not long leave you."— Ken Burns, filmmaker

"Seen thorugh the fresh eyes of buffalo soldier Elijah Yancy, Yosemite is 'Gloryland,' his true home. Shelton Johnson has written a beautiful novel about Elijah's journey." — Maxine Hong Kingston

About Shelton Johnson

Shelton Johnson, a native of Detroit, Michigan, currently serves as a ranger in Yosemite National Park. He has worked for the national park service since 1987, also serving in Great Basin National Park and Yellowstone National Park, as well as in parks in and around Washington, D.C.

He served with the Peace Corps in Liberia and attended graduate school at the University of Michigan, where he won several writing awards, including a Hopwood Award in poetry.

Johnson has presented his original living-history program about a buffalo soldier at venues around the country and has received many honors and awards for this work, which has also been widely covered in the media; and he is featured in the Ken Burns documentary film The National Parks: America's Best Idea. Johnson and his wife and son live just outside Yosemite National Park.
More about Shelton Johnson

Listen to our Shelton Johnson interview from Sierra Club Radio.

Contact / media inquiries: orli.cotel@sierraclub.org, (415) 977-5627