There’s a Book for That: Native American Heritage Month
Welcome Native American Heritage Month – a time to celebrate the traditions, languages and stories of Native American and Alaska Native communities and ensure their rich histories and contributions continue to thrive with each passing generation. In commemoration of the culture and people who were the original settlers of this land, we present the following recently published, and acclaimed, fiction and nonfiction written by, and about, indigenous peoples:
A stunning narrative from one of the most powerful young writers at work today, and the director of the Oscar®-nominated documentary, Sugarcane, We Survived the Night interweaves oral history with hard-hitting journalism and a deeply personal father-son journey into a searing portrait of Indigenous survival, love, and resurgence.
“Julian Brave NoiseCat seamlessly connects true tales of identity and betrayal, love and abandonment, clarity and confusion. We Survived the Night is a whirling, radiant gift to the reader.” —Louise Erdrich
Turtle Island is a beautiful exploration of the delicious foods that have for millennia linked the environments, traditions, history, and cultures of the Native communities of the North American continent, with ancestral and modern Indigenous recipes from three-time James Beard Award winner Sean Sherman, Oglala Lakota, founder of The Sioux Chef.
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER
In this important addition to the growing tradition of North American history centered on Indigenous nations, Kathleen DuVal shows how the definitions of power and means of exerting it shifted over time, but the sovereignty and influence of Native peoples remained a constant—and will continue far into the future.
A sweeping and deeply personal account of Native American boarding schools in the United States, and the legacy of abuse wrought by them in an attempt to destroy Native culture and life.
Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a mystery that will haunt the survivors, unravel a family, and remain unsolved for nearly fifty years.
WINNER OF THE AMERICAN BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY
“This is an incredibly powerful book of poetry that is also fiction but it is so real, and singular, as to defy definition, and I defy anyone to read it and come away unchanged.” —Tommy Orange, author of There There and Wandering Stars
Through poetic vignettes whose unconventional forms mirror the nonlinear, patchwork process of constructing a sense of self, m.s. RedCherries has crafted a stunning, multimorphic work of poetry and prose about Indigenous identity.
A Penguin Vitae edition of the great Native American Novel of a battered veteran returning home to heal his mind and spirit.
More than 45 years after its original publication, Ceremony remains one of the most profound and moving works of Native American literature, a novel that is itself a ceremony of healing. Tayo, a World War II veteran of mixed ancestry, returns to the Laguna Pueblo Reservation. He is deeply scarred by his experience as a prisoner of the Japanese and further wounded by the rejection he encounters from his people. Only by immersing himself in the Indian past can he begin to regain the peace that was taken from him. Masterfully written, filled with the somber majesty of Pueblo myth, Ceremony is a work of enduring power
This American Book Award-winning title about Native American struggle and resistance radically reframes more than 400 years of US history and is the basis for the HBO docuseries Exterminate All the Brutes, directed by Raoul Peck.
The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. This classic bottom-up peoples’ history explodes the silences that have haunted our national narrative.
An Indigenous artist blends the aesthetics of punk rock with the traditional spiritual practices of the women in her lineage in this bold, contemporary journey to reclaim her heritage and unleash her power and voice while searching for a permanent home
Set against a backdrop of the breathtaking beauty of Coast Salish ancestral land and imbued with the universal spirit of punk, Red Paint is ultimately a story of the ways we learn to find our true selves while fighting for our right to claim a place of our own.
A groundbreaking Dakota author and activist chronicles her refusal to assimilate into nineteenth-century white society and her mission to preserve her culture—with an introduction by Layli Long Soldier, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award for Whereas.
Combining Zitkála-Šá’s childhood memories, her short stories, and her poetry, American Indian Stories is the origin story of an activist in the making, a remarkable woman whose extraordinary career deserves wider recognition.
A wondrous and shattering award-winning novel that follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize.
For more on these and related titles visit Native American Heritage Month
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