Recent Books by Native Americans

If you enjoyed There There, then you’ll love Firekeeper's Daughter.

“Firekeeper's Daughter is a wonder! We so rarely hear YA through an Indigenous people's voice and this book does it so very well. Main character Daunis Lorenzo Fontaine lives a fine line between her white French Canadian mother and her Ojibwe father in a complicated family dynamic. She is smart, hockey talented, driven, and tenacious as she navigates the murder of her best friend Lily, rampant drug culture, and the journey to find herself. Angeline Boulley seamlessly incorporates the Ojbiwe language and lifeways that both inform and educate the reader in this amazing story that will stay with me long after I have moved onto other books. A MUST-read (or listen)!”

Rebecca, Rediscovered Books

A stunning new volume from the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United States, informed by her tribal history and connection to the land.

In the early 1800s, the Mvskoke people were forcibly removed from their original lands east of the Mississippi to Indian Territory, which is now part of Oklahoma. Two hundred years later, Joy Harjo...

The Night Watchman

“The Night Watchman is an extraordinary book based on the life of Edrich's grandfather who was a night watchman at a jewel bearing plant as well as an activitist against Native dispossession. The other featured protaganist is Patrice Paranteau who you will quickly come to adore. The Night Watchman is one of Edrich's best works and I highly recommend it!”

Rachel, Avid Bookshop

The Removed

“In telling the story of a Native family in Oklahoma who lost a teenage son to a shooting, The Removed examines the power of inherited trauma and the strength of family to keep people together. The book is told in the voices of the various family members left after the death of their son/brother and explores the effects on their lives of their Cherokee ancestors who walked the Trail of Tears. Mixing several points of view along with Native myth, Hobson brings a powerful story to light where the reader really steps into the shoes of each character. The loss, sadness, and despair are palpable, but so are hope and healing, by the end. A truly beautiful book about something everyone should read more about.”

Izzy Stringham, Bookbinders Basalt

Edited by award-winning and bestselling author Cynthia Leitich Smith, this collection of intersecting stories by both new and veteran Native writers bursts with hope, joy, resilience, the strength of community, and Native pride.

Native families from Nations across the continent gather at the Dance for Mother Earth Powwow in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Black Sun

“An epic high fantasy that follows several different characters, throughout different points in time as they are all set to converge on the day of a solar eclipse. On this day, the fate of their world will be altered. An incredible story and great listen on Libro.fm, but definitely something you have to pay attention too or you will miss important details!”

Amy, Bright Side Bookshop

Winter Counts

“Weiden’s book is a thriller with an important social and political message. Following a Lakota ‘enforcer’ who enacts extrajudicial punishment to fill the gaps in the legal system, Winter Counts is a twisty new addition to the growing Indigenous literature canon. Weiden’s exploration of the injustices of reservation life is vital.”

Ashley Baeckmann, Briars & Brambles Books

As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our... Read more »

Empire of Wild

“Cherie Dimaline’s latest novel packs a wallop of a story. Absolutely stunning in every way, this latest offering follows the story of Joan, whose husband has disappeared, and her courage when confronted with truths and lies. She and her husband, Victor, live in a Métis community, close and tight knit. As Joan deals with the fallout of her emotions after Victor disappears, she comes across another man, Eugene Wolff, who bears her husband’s face. He does not carry Victor’s memories and insists he has no idea who Joan’s husband is. Turning over rocks to find the truth, Joan reaches out to whomever she can in her community for help. What waits for her at the end of her quest is incredible. This novel will have you at the edge of your seat!”

Annie Carl, The Neverending Bookshop

WINNER OF THE HUBERT EVANS NON-FICTION PRIZE
FINALIST FOR THE JIM DEVA PRIZE FOR WRITING THAT PROVOKES
FINALIST FOR THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD FOR NON-FICTION
FINALIST FOR THE LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FOR GAY MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

A slim but electrifying debut memoir about the preciousness and precariousness of queer Indigenous... Read more »

In a new collection that is "a force of nature" (Amy Gerstler), renowned Native poet Heid E. Erdrich applies her rich inventive voice and fierce wit to the deforming effects of harassment and oppression.

Little Big Bully begins with a question asked of a collective and troubled we - how did we come to this? In answer, this book offers personal... Read more »

There There

“A stunning debut novel by an original voice. Twelve characters of Native American descent, interrelated by birth or chance, struggle with the competing forces of cultural history and modern urban existence. Their stories build separately before colliding powerfully in the book’s final pages at The Big Oakland Powwow. I was riveted.”

Keltie, Parnassus Books

Beth Piatote’s luminous debut collection opens with a feast, grounding its stories in the landscapes and lifeworlds of the Native Northwest, exploring the inventive and unforgettable pattern of Native American life in the contemporary world

Told with humor, subtlety, and spareness, the mixed-genre works of Beth Piatote’s first collection find...

"Buffy Sainte-Marie is an icon and inspiration. This book is necessary—an authorized insight into the making of a legend." —Terese Marie Mailhot, author of Heart Berries

A powerful, intimate look at the life of a beloved folk icon and activist.

Folk hero. Songwriter icon. Living legend. Buffy Sainte-Marie is all of these things and more. In this,...

The Only Good Indians

“I loved this book. Jones has a unique narrative voice, allowing ‘the entity’ to step in and take over unexpectedly, amping up the horror. Also, each character has a distinct voice that brings them to life. Jones combines the culture and traditions of the Blackfeet and Crow people with the social truths of their contemporary life. It is refreshingly different from any other horror novel I’ve read. This book is gruesome and honestly scary. I couldn’t put it down.”

Kristine Jelstrom-Hamill, Buttonwood Books and Toys

"Dazzling. . . . In glittering prose, Momaday recalls stories passed down through generations, illuminating the earth as a sacrosanct place of wonder and abundance. At once a celebration and a warning, Earth Keeper is an impassioned defense of all that our endangered planet stands to lose." — Esquire

A magnificent testament to the earth, from...

American Indian Youth Literature Award: Middle Grade Honor Book! In this evocative and heartwarming novel for readers who loved The Thing About Jellyfish, the author of I Can Make This Promise tells the story of a Native American girl struggling to find her joy again.

It’s been a hard year for Maisie Cannon, ever since she hurt her leg and could...

The Mohawk phrase for depression can be roughly translated as a mind spread out on the ground. In this urgent and visceral work, Alicia Elliott explores how apt a description that is for the ongoing effects of the personal, intergenerational, and colonial traumas she and so many Native people have experienced.Elliott's deeply personal writing...

A daughter returns home to the Navajo reservation to retrace her mother’s life in a memoir that is both a narrative and an archive of one family’s troubled history
 
“An honest, intimate, and heart-wrenching memoir that explores the fractured family, the damaging effects of alcoholism and poverty, and what it means to seek healing from the... Read more »