Shelby Harper: Native authors everyone should be reading

American Indians make up only 1% of the United States population, but faux images of us abound in pop culture. From Pocahontas to Tonto to Dances With Wolves to the use of cartoon faces of Indians as mascots, inauthentic portraits of Native people fill the big and small screen, and were once common in books. Fortunately, there’s a growing body of literature written about Indians by Indians, all with the power to transport readers into the real world of Native people. As a citizen of the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma and a former practitioner of federal Indian law, I know how much our lives are shaped by the histories of our tribal communities and the federal government’s laws and policies regarding tribes and Indian people. The full and authentic representation of Indian people—the good and the bad, the tragic and the hopeful—is represented in the incredible poems and stories written by Native people today.

If you’re interested in reading kickass fiction, poetry and memoir that leans experimental and incorporates myth, traditional stories, and non-linear story structure, take a look at the following books. The first four include authors you may already be familiar with, and the following eight are writers you’d do yourself a favor to get to know. Because tribal citizenship is important to Indian people, I’ve included each author’s tribal affiliation.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Spokane Indian): No list of American Indian fiction, short stories or poetry would be complete without Sherman Alexie, whose work has the ability to make most people laugh and cry – often on the same page. Of everything he’s written, The Absolutely True Diaries of a Part-Time Indian, an autobiographical Young Adult novel, is probably my favorite. In it, he tells the story of Junior, a cartoonist and basketball player growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. When Junior leaves his troubled reservation school to attend an all-white farm town high school (where the only other Indian is the mascot), he must confront race, class, death, and the strong pull of “home” — all the while struggling to exist in two worlds. (Side note: Alexie is a must-follow on Twitter; he’s snarky and irreverent and will have you falling out of your chair with laughter.)

The Round House (P.S.) and Love Medicine (P.S.) by Louise Erdrich (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians): Two novels by Louise Erdrich are particularly special to me. The Round House, which won the National Book Award for Fiction for 2012, follows 13-year-old Joe, an Ojibwe Indian residing on a reservation in North Dakota, in the aftermath of his mother’s brutal rape and beating by a non-Indian on land near the tribe’s ceremonial grounds. It’s a gripping novel with vivid and original characters, and is considered one of Erdrich’s most accessible novels. It’s a coming of age story about love, justice, family, culture, and history.

Love Medicine is Erdrich’s first novel and was originally published in 1984. The book explores 60 years in the lives of Ojibwa Indians living on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in North Dakota. A different character narrates each chapter, and the large array of characters and their familial connections can be a dizzying but beautiful experience. Thankfully, Erdrich includes a family tree at the beginning of the novel, which aids the reader in keeping track of the array of characters and familial connections. Themes include cultural identity, the impact of federal Indian policy, and Native spirituality.