Here, Kevin Abourezk of the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star, details the developments concerning publication of the classic book “Black Elk Speaks.” The book was by far the best-selling book ever published by University of Nebraska Press before publication rights were switched to a New York publisher. But those rights lapse in 2013. Let’s let Abourezk tell it:

When she was a child, Charlotte Black Elk’s grandfather would tell her stories about her great-grandfather Nicholas Black Elk.

Her great-grandfather — the subject of the 1932 book “Black Elk Speaks,” written by Nebraska poet laureate in perpetuity John G. Neihardt — died before she was born.

Her grandfather Ben Black Elk would hold his arms wide and say her great-grandfather’s life story was this big. The book, he said, contracting his arms so just a small space remained between his hands, told this much of that story.

“Everywhere I’ve traveled in the world people are familiar with it,” she said Tuesday of “Black Elk Speaks.” “He touched a lot of people and through the book continues to touch a lot of people.”

There are few places where “Black Elk Speaks” has had a more profound impact than in Nebraska, where the University of Nebraska Press published more than 900,000 copies of the book before the author’s family decided to sell the book’s publishing rights to a New York publisher in 2008.

The biography of the Lakota holy man remains the NU Press’ bestselling book of all time.

A former NU Press director, Gary Dunham, had lured the Neihardt family, which owns the book’s publication rights, east after he left Nebraska in December 2007 to become director of the State University of New York Press.

Now Dunham has left SUNY Press, according to a SUNY spokesman, who offered no further details on Dunham’s departure. SUNY Press’ contract to publish “Black Elk Speaks” won’t elapse until 2013, however.

Read the rest here.

Tags: Ben Black Elk, Black Elk, Black Elk Speaks, buffalo post, Charlotte Black Elk, Gary Dunham, John G. Neihardt, Lakota, Native American news, Nicholas Black Elk, Oglala Sioux, State University of New York Press, SUNY, University of Nebraska Press