QUOTED
“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up.” ― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum
NOVELS (SELECT)
- The Antelope Wife
In an attack on an Indian village, a U.S. cavalryman takes a baby girl, but later gives her back. So begins a multi-generation saga on the girl's descendants as they navigate between modern life and ancient tradition. By the author of The Bingo Palace.
(LibraryThing) - The Beet Queen
In the early 1930s, Karl and his sister Mary Adare, arrive by boxcar in Argus, a small off-reservation town in North Dakota. Orphaned, they look to their mother's sister Fritzie and her husband for refuge.
(LibraryThing) - Future Home of the Living God
The world as we know it is ending. Evolution has reversed itself, affecting every living creature on earth. Science cannot stop the world from running backwards, as woman after woman gives birth to infants that appear to be primitive species of humans.
(LibraryThing) - The Last Report of Miracles at Little No Horse
Father Damien Modeste has served his beloved Native American tribe, the Ojibwe, on the remote reservation of Little No Horse. Now, nearing the end of his life, Father Damien dreads the discovery of his physical identity, for he is a woman who has lived as a man.
(LibraryThing) - Love Medicine
The lives and destinies of the Kashpaws and the Lamartines intertwine on and around a North Dakota Indian reservation from 1934 to 1984, in an authentic tale of survival, tenacity, tradition, injustice, and love.
(LibraryThing) - The Plague of Doves
The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation.
(LibraryThing) - Tracks
Told in the alternating voices of a wise Chippewa Indian leader, and a young, embittered mixed-blood woman, the novel chronicles the drama of daily lives overshadowed by the clash of cultures and mythologies.
(LibraryThing)
POETRY
- Baptism of Desire
Baptisim by blood, water, or desire is necessary for salvation in Roman Catholic tradition, and baptism of desire in the term used for the leap of trust by which a sincere believer can experience spiritual regeneration. These are themes in this collection of poetry.
(LibraryThing) - Jacklight
The poems of Louise Erdrich reflect what it is to be a woman, a Midwesterner and a native American. She presents that region and those people without sentimentality, and although drawing from a deep well she does not ignore the ordinary.
(LibraryThing) - Original Fire
In this collection, Louise Erdrich has selected poems from her two previous books of poetry, Jacklight and Baptism of Desire, and has added nineteen new poems
(LibraryThing)
INTERVIEW
ARTICLES
- A Timely Novel of Anti ProgressYou must be signed in to TSU for access to this New York Times Article.
NATIVE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE WRITERS
LITERATURE DATABASES
- Alexander Street LiteratureThis is a comprehensive, cross-searchable package of collections covering literatures of place, race, and gender.
- Columbia Granger’s World of Poetry OnlineThis database contains 250,000 poems in full text and 450,000 citations
- Films on DemandThese videos cover American Literature.
- Gale LiteratureThis database brings together many Literature databases.
- Gale: LitFinderHere you can find access to short stories, speeches, and plays.
- JSTORThis a huge database covering the humanities with access to very many academic journals and more.
- Project MuseThis database is a provider of digital humanities and social science content. It has access to academic journals and books.
- Scribner Writers SeriesThis includes 15-20 page signed essays on more than 2,000 authors and literary genres.
- Twayne Author SeriesHere you can find biographical information and literary criticism about world authors and their notable literary works.
- Twentieth-Century African American PoetryThis is a source for modern and contemporary African American poetry
- Women Writers OnlineThis is a full-text collection of early women’s writing in English, published by the Women Writers Project at Northeastern University.