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.