Erdrich received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Best Fiction for Love Medicine, which is the first of a series of interconnected novels including The Beet Queen (1986), which also received a nomination for the National Book Critics Circle Award, Tracks (1988), The Bingo Palace (1994), and Tales of Burning Love (1996).

She and Michael Dorris were married in October 1981.Įrdrich won the $5,000 Nelson Algren Fiction Award in 1982 with her short story “The World’s Greatest Fisherman.” This would later become the opening chapter for her first novel, Love Medicine (1984), which explores the loss of cultural identity over several generations of a Native American family. A few years later, she was invited to return to Dartmouth to read from her work and eventually, to be a writer-in-residence. Erdrich graduated in 1976, and received her Master of Arts degree in writing from Johns Hopkins University in 1979. She took courses in the newly implemented Native American Studies department, whose chair was the writer Michael Dorris. In 1972, the first year that Dartmouth admitted women, Erdrich enrolled there as a student of English and creative writing. Erdrich continued her writing by keeping a journal throughout high school. At an early age Erdrich was encouraged by her parents, both of whom taught at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, to write stories. The oldest of seven children, she grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota. Her father, Ralph Erdrich, was of German descent, and her mother, Rita Gourneau, of French and Chippewa Indian descent. Louise Erdrich was born in Little Falls, Minnesota in 1954.

Tracks louise erdrich ebook