10 Must-Read Native American Authors

Louise Erdrich

No database of Native American authors would beryllium implicit without powerhouse writer Louise Erdrich, whose dozens of books person won galore awards. It’s hard to prime what she’s champion known for! Her Love Medicine series, which includes 8 books published betwixt 1984 and 2005, is simply a postulation of novels astir a radical of interconnected characters surviving successful Ojibwe communities successful Minnesota. Her children’s bid The Birchbark House is simply a gorgeous humanities caller astir an Ojibwa miss successful the mid-1800s. If you’re caller to Erdrich, you can’t spell incorrect with immoderate of her books, but my proposal is to commencement with her newest, The Sentence. It’s acceptable successful Minneapolis successful 2020, and portion it deals with the pandemic and George Floyd’s murder, it’s some hopeful and moving. Plus, Erdrich herself, and her bookstore Birchbark Books, look successful the novel!

Stephen Graham Jones

Another powerhouse of a writer, Stephen Graham Jones is without question 1 of the champion and astir prolific fearfulness writers moving day. Though his books mostly autumn nether the fearfulness umbrella, they screen a full slew of sub-genres, from slashers and household dramas to shade stories and different supernatural horror. Much of his enactment plays with fearfulness tropes, and helium blends terrifying plots and creepy monsters with societal commentary and affluent quality development. It’s intolerable to prime conscionable 1 go-to book, but I’d urge starting with The Only Good Indians, which follows 4 Indigenous men whose past comes backmost to haunt them successful unexpected ways.

Joy Harjo

Joy Harjo was the archetypal Native American writer to go United States Poet Laureate. She’s written implicit a twelve collections of poetry, arsenic good arsenic respective books of memoir and nonfiction, 2 children’s books, and a play. She’s besides a musician, and has released respective albums that diagnostic some her ain archetypal songs and those of different Native musicians. In different words: she’s a superb and prolific writer, and if you’ve yet to observe her work, you’re successful for a treat! For fans of memoir who are funny successful learning much astir her life, Crazy Brave and Poet Warrior are some large introduction points. If you’re looking for poetry, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings is simply a beauteous instauration to her work.

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Cynthia Leitich Smith

Cynthia Leitich Smith is an writer of YA, mediate grade, and children’s books that halfway modern Native teenagers. She’s besides an advocator of Indigenous literature, and curates an unthinkable enactment of resources connected her website. Her 2018 YA caller Hearts Unbroken volition springiness readers a sensation of her benignant (though she decidedly writes crossed genres). It’s astir a Native teen wading done the murky waters of archetypal emotion portion besides dealing with the racism she faces from her achromatic peers.

David Treuer

Ojibwe author David Treuer is champion known successful the publication satellite for his broad past of Native America, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee. Through an in-depth exploration of Native past successful the precocious 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, helium refutes the harmful stereotype that Native American past is past history. It’s a challenging and thought-provoking publication astir indispensable American past that is excessively often overlooked. But it’s not the lone happening Treuer has written! He’s besides the writer of respective novels and memoirs, including Rez Life (a memoir/social past of preservation life) and Prudence (a humanities caller acceptable during WWII).

Leslie Marmon Silko

Leslie Marmon Silko is surely 1 of the astir well-known Native American authors moving today. She was 1 of the debut recipients of a MacArthur assistance and has been contributing to and shaping Indigenous lit successful America since the 1970s. Her debut, and arguably astir celebrated novel, Ceremony, follows Tayo, a Native American antheral who returns to his preservation aft WWII and finds some himself and the satellite helium near changed forever. Silko uses a blend of poetry, prose, and achromatic abstraction to archer an unforgettable story. Like overmuch of her work, it is nonlinear and expansive, the benignant of publication that requires immoderate enactment to work — enactment that is perfectly worthy it.

Marcie R. Rendon

Crime fabrication fans: If Marcie R. Rendon isn’t connected your radar yet, it’s clip to alteration that! Her Cash Blackbear bid is acceptable successful 1970s Minnesota, and it has everything that makes for a large mystery: a vivid setting, an irrepressible protagonist, and the cleanable blend betwixt enactment and atmosphere. Cash Blackbear is simply a 19-year aged Ojibwe woman who plays hard, takes nary nonsense, and happens to beryllium truly bully astatine solving mysteries. Start with Murder connected the Red River, but marque definite you person the 2nd installment, Girl Gone Missing, acceptable and waiting.

Joshua Whitehead

Joshua Whitehead whitethorn inactive beryllium successful the earlier stages of his career, but helium already has unthinkable range. So acold he’s published a publication of poetry, a novel, an effort collection, and edited an anthology of Two-Spirit speculative fiction. He seems wholly astatine easiness successful conscionable astir each genre, and there’s a vibrancy and immediacy that comes done successful each of his work. His caller Jonny Appleseed is simply a funny, sad, and tender communicative astir a queer Indigenous twenty-something navigating work, love, family, grief, friendship, and sex.

Cherie Dimaline

I fell successful emotion with the enactment of Canadian writer Cherie Dimaline aft speechmaking The Marrow Thieves, a young big dystopia acceptable successful a aboriginal successful which Indigenous radical are hunted for the powerfulness that lives successful their bony marrow — the quality to dream. It’s a bleak publication astatine times, but the bleakness doesn’t specify it; it’s besides astir recovered household and the powerfulness of storytelling. She’s besides the writer of respective different big and young big phantasy and speculative novels, including the just-released VenCo, a highly entertaining romp astir a coven of witches connected a scavenger hunt crossed America.

Eden Robinson

Eden Robinson is simply a Canadian writer from British Columbia with a peculiar endowment for bringing places to beingness successful her work. Monkey Beach, 1 of my favourite novels of each time, is acceptable successful a close-knit Haisla community successful Robinson’s hometown of Kitamaat. It’s a coming-of-age caller astir family, healing, ancestral traditions, ghosts, and the ocean. Her different astir notable enactment is the Trickster trilogy, opening with Son of a Trickster, a precise antithetic but arsenic fantastic coming-of-age communicative with the lightest interaction of magic.