Louise Erdrich

Louise Erdrich is a highly acclaimed American author, well-known for her fiction writing that often features Native American settings and characters. She is an enrolled member of the Anishinaabe nation, also known as the Chippewa, and has Turtle Mountain Band membership. Erdrich's writing is widely recognized, making her one of the most significant Native writers of the second wave of what critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance.

Born in Little Falls, Minnesota, in 1954, Erdrich was raised mostly in Wahpeton, North Dakota. Her parents were teachers at Bureau of Indian Affairs schools. She has a diverse heritage, with her father being German American and her mother being half Ojibwe and half French American. Before becoming a writer, Erdrich held various jobs, including hoeing sugar beets, farm work, waitressing, short-order cooking, lifeguarding, and construction work. Erdrich attended the Johns Hopkins creative writing program and received fellowships at the McDowell Colony and the Yaddo Colony. After being named writer-in-residence at Dartmouth, she married professor Michael Dorris, and they raised several children together, some of them adopted.

Erdrich is the author of numerous bestselling and award-winning novels, including Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, Tracks, The Bingo Palace, The Antelope Wife, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, and The Round House. She has also written two collections of poetry, Jacklight, and Baptism of Desire. Her fiction has been honored by the National Book Critics Circle and The Los Angeles Times, and her work has been translated into fourteen languages. Several of her short stories have been selected for O. Henry awards and for inclusion in the annual Best American Short Story anthologies.

In addition to her writing, Erdrich is also an independent bookstore owner. She runs Birchbark Books in Minneapolis, which focuses mainly on Native American literature and community in the Twin Cities. The bookstore is a reflection of Erdrich's commitment to promoting Native American culture and literature. Erdrich's work has had a significant impact on Native American literature, and she continues to be a prominent figure in contemporary American literature.
Birchbark House Books
# Title Year
1 The Birchbark House 1999
2 The Game of Silence 2005
3 The Porcupine Year 2008
4 Chickadee 2012
5 Makoons 2016
Love Medicine Books
# Title Year
1 Love Medicine 1984
2 The Beet Queen 1985
3 Tracks 1988
4 The Bingo Palace 1994
5 Tales of Burning Love 1996
6 The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse 2000
7 Four Souls 2004
8 The Painted Drum 2005
Standalone Novels
# Title Year
1 The Crown of Columbus 1991
2 The Antelope Wife / Antelope Woman 1998
3 The Master Butchers Singing Club 2003
4 The Plague of Doves 2008
5 Shadow Tag 2010
6 The Round House 2012
7 LaRose 2016
8 Future Home of the Living God 2017
9 The Night Watchman 2020
10 The Sentence 2021
Picture Books
# Title Year
1 Grandmother's Pigeon 1996
2 The Range Eternal 2002
Non-Fiction Books
# Title Year
1 Imagination 1982
2 Route Two 1990
3 Conversations with Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris 1994
4 The Blue Jay's Dance: A Birth Year 1995
5 Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country 2003
Collections
# Title Year
1 Jacklight 1984
2 Baptism of Desire 1990
3 Original Fire 2003
4 The Red Convertible 2009
Contemporary Literature and the Life of Faith Books
# Title Year
1 Listening for God Reader, Vol. 1 1994
2 Listening for God, Vol. 2 1996
3 Listening for God, Vol. 3 2000
4 Listening For God, Vol. 4 2002
Louise Erdrich Anthologies
# Title Year
1 Points of View 1956
2 New Woman, New Fiction 1990
3 The Short Story: 30 Masterpieces 1992
4 Growing Up Native American 1993
5 The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales 1993
6 The Best American Short Stories 1993 1993
7 Touchwood of Ojibway Prose 1994
8 Listening for God Reader, Vol. 1 1994
9 Odd Angles of Heaven: Contemporary Poetry by People of Faith 1994
10 The Adoption Reader: Birth Mothers, Adoptive Mothers, and Adopted Daughters Tell Their Stories 1995
11 Listening for God, Vol. 2 1996
12 Mistresses of the Dark 1998
13 The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction 1999
14 Real Things: An Anthology of Popular Culture in American Poetry 1999
15 Listening for God, Vol. 3 2000
16 Writers on Writing 2001
17 Fourteenth Annual Collection 2001
18 Listening For God, Vol. 4 2002
19 The Eloquent Short Story: An Anthology of Narrative Styles 2004
20 More Stories We Tell 2004
21 Every Day Is a Good Day 2004
22 Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink 2007
23 The New Granta Book of the American Short Story 2007
24 Not Normal, Illinois: Peculiar Fictions from the Flyover 2009
25 Granta 115: The F Word 2011
26 The Best American Short Stories 2015 2015
27 Freeman's: Arrival 2015
28 Reel Verse: Poems about the Movies 2019
29 Bodies Built for Game 2019
30 Fight of the Century 2020
31 The Writer's Library 2020
32 Freeman's. Amore 2020
33 Fourteen Days: An Unauthorized Gathering 2024