Louise is an American author whose work includes novels, poetry, memoir, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, a federally recognized tribe of the Anishinaabe.
Born June 7, 1954, in Little Falls, Minnesota, Erdrich was the oldest of seven children born to Ralph Erdrich, a German American, and Rita, a Chippewa. While Erdrich was a child, her father paid her a nickel for every story she wrote. Erdrich attended Dartmouth College from 1972 to 1976. During this time, she began to look into her own ancestry, which inspired her to draw from it for her literary work, such as poems, short stories, and novels.
Over the years, Erdrich has won numerous awards for her work, including a 1975 American Academy of Poets Prize, the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award for “Love Medicine;” a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas; and the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for “The Night Watchman,” amongst others.
When asked in an interview if writing is a lonely life for her, Erdrich replied, "Strangely, I think it is. I am surrounded by an abundance of family and friends and yet I am alone with the writing. And that is perfect." Erdrich lives in Minneapolis.
May 8, 1993 - A reading from Native American author Louise Erdrich’s book "The Blue Jay's Dance: A Birth Year." Book is a meditation on the experience of motherhood - the first nonfiction work by Erdrich.
October 2, 1993 - A reading of Louise Erdrich's meditation “The Veils," an essay on the literal and figurative symbols of veils for women.
January 31, 1994 - MPR’s Paula Schroeder interviews Native American author Louise Erdrich about her novel "The Bingo Palace." Erdrich talks of the complexity of gaming on tribal land.
April 17, 1996 - Native American author Louise Erdrich reads an excerpt from her book "Tales of Burning Love."
April 20, 1996 - MPR’s Greta Cunningham interviews Minnesota author Louise Erdrich about her book “Tales of Burning Love.” Erdrich tells the intimate and powerful stories of five Great Plains women whose lives are connected through one man.
August 8, 2000 - MPR’s Lynette Nyman reports on a unique new Minneapolis bookstore.
September 23, 2005 - MPR’s Greta Cunningham interviews Minnesota author Louise Erdrich about her book “The Painted Drum.” The story is of a New Hampshire woman, an Ojibwe Indian and a Native American drum.
April 28, 2008 - One of Minnesota's best-known novelists, Louise Erdrich, discusses her book “A Plague of Doves,” a story that weaves together the murder of a family, a lynching of men innocent of the crime, and the tangled relationships of Ojibwe and whites living around the dying town of Pluto, North Dakota.
September 21, 2009 - The inaugural formal meeting of The Kerri Miller Book Club presents an interview with Louise Erdrich, twenty-five years after Erdrich's novel "Love Medicine" was published and became a bestseller. Program recorded before an audience in Minneapolis.
September 16, 2010 - MPR’s Kerri Miller interviews Minnesota writer Louise Erdrich about The Guthrie Theater production of Erdrich's novel "The Master Butchers Singing Club." Francesca Zambello, internationally renowned opera and theater director, is also interviewed.