10 Indigenous Authors You Should Read This Month

Named one of the best books of 2021 by a dizzying array of publications including Book Riot, BuzzFeed, Literary Hub, Bon Appetit, Ms. Magazine, Thrillist, and many more, this “moving and monumental debut novel” (Minneapolis Star Tribune) tells the story of Rosalie Iron Wing, a Dakhota woman whose life in foster care has shaped her every bit as much as the teachings of her father, a science teacher, who raised her in the woods until he disappeared one day. 

Now a widow with a family of her own, Rosalie returns to her childhood home in this gripping story of life, legacy, and “a love for nature you can feel seeping through each page” (Book Riot).

This “formally inventive, historically eye-opening novel” (New York Times) from the award-winning author of Perma Red recasts the history of one of America’s best-known native figures by making Sacajewea’s story once more her own. 

From the time a white man first appears in her camp to her capture and enslavement, to her role as guide and interpreter for the expeditions of Lewis and Clarke, this “beautiful reclamation” brings “a much-needed Native woman’s perspective to Sacajewea’s story, bringing a note of resilience to her unflinching account of the white men’s violence and depredation” (Publishers Weekly).

A “poetically punk debut memoir about ancestry, loss, colonialism, rebuilding, power, hope and healing” (Ms. Magazine), the words in Rose Quartz are at once elegiac and primal, peering into our own collective unconscious while also addressing the author’s very specific ancestry as a Coast Salish woman. 

The result is an “absorbing” (Time) book that links the contemporary Pacific Northwest to a long and fraught history of colonialism and survival. Here are touchstones drawn from old traditions and modern popular culture, woven into poetic stories about both the peril and the power of life.

Canadian author Eden Robinson’s 2017 novel Son of a Trickster was adapted into the popular TV series Trickster, which was unfortunately unceremoniously canceled after a scandal involving one of the showrunners. Whether you’re a fan of the show or simply someone who wants to read some raw and evocative prose, this collection of three short stories and one novella is a perfect primer on Robinson’s work – or an ideal place to quench your appetite if you’ve come off the series hungry for more. 

From the child of a serial killer to a teenager who is brutalized by his sadistic cousin, these are unsparing stories with a “raw energy” (Publishers Weekly) that is difficult to deny.

“A rare portrait of a writer struggling both to preserve his people’s heritage and to turn it into art” (The New York Times Book Review), this book from the author that Bloomsbury Review called “a national treasure” centers on a murder mystery, as so many popular novels have done, but goes in different and unexpected directions as Ray Young Bear continues the story of his fictional alter-ego, Edgar Bearchild. 

The result is a “magnificent” (New York Times) book like no other, from a master wordsmith at the height of his powers.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jane Smiley called Richard Wagamese “a master of empathy,” and it’s not hard to see why when reading this “severe yet beautiful” (National Post) novel that chronicles the life of a Ojibway youth who becomes a growing hockey star, even as he continues to face the prejudices and hatreds that have dogged him throughout his life. 

From the brutal boarding schools to which he is consigned after the death of his family to the professional hockey rinks of Canada, this novel tells the story of Saul Indian Horse, and through him the story of so many.

A “thoughtful and generous” debut, “capturing the fraught experience of being Native American in the modern U.S.” (Publishers Weekly), this collection of stories features Haudenosaunee characters who contend with their identities both on and off the reservation, “powerfully charting what it is to be human in a world that works to divide us” (Susan Power, author of Sacred Wilderness). 

Across stories and among unforgettable characters, this debut collection is “enlightening and thought-provoking, Michal’s stories are a pleasure to read and absorb” (Booklist).

From the Plimpton Prize-winning author comes this “compelling journey through the evolving terrain of multiple generations of women” (The Washington Post). Born in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, Justine grew up in a family filled with tough women, until a shocking act of violence set her and her daughter on a different path. 

Now in the Red River of Texas, she tries to make a new life for herself, only to find that old troubles may be hard to leave behind in this gripping novel that spans four decades and explores the powerful bonds between mothers and daughters.

A “prolific writer with an oeuvre of over 25 books” (Oprah.com), Gerald Vizenor is also a member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe of the White Earth Reservation. 

In this fractured, challenging, and often darkly humorous take on modernity, he turns his attention to a Paris occupied by the Nazis to tell a story about liberals, fascists, artists, and bohemians – and about the legacy of the fur trade throughout the world, all in the form of letters written from a fictional writer who lives on a houseboat on the Seine, putting on puppet shows along with his brother.

Over the years, Sherman Alexie has established himself as one of America’s best-known writers of short stories and, in Blasphemy, he “once again reasserts himself as one of the most compelling contemporary practitioners” of the form (Boston Globe). 

This new collection from the PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author combines sixteen brand new stories with fifteen of his most beloved classics to create this “great triumph” (Los Angeles Times) of a collection that’s a perfect starting point for Alexie’s long and illustrious career.