A. Robert Lee and Alan Velie note that the book's title "quickly gained currency as a term to describe the efflorescence on literary works that followed the publication of N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn in 1968".
Prior to the publication of House Made of Dawn, few Native American authors had published works of fiction that reached wide readership.
Writers such as William Apess, John Rollin Ridge and Simon Pokagon published works to little fanfare in the nineteenth century.
"[3] For example, Joan Nagel applies the term to the totality of "the resurgence of American Indian ethnic identification and the renascence of tribal cultures during the 1970s and 1980s.
"[4] Writers typically considered to be part of the Native American Renaissance include: John Gamber argues that the characteristics of Renaissance writers are as follows: devotion to a sacred landscape; a homing-in plot, often associated with a protagonist's return to the reservation; the treatment of a mixed-blood protagonist's dilemma between two worlds as a central theme.