Ojibwe Author Louise Erdrich's "The Round House" Wins National Book Award

Levi Rickert, editor-in-chief in Entertainment. Discussion »

NEW YORK – Ojibwe author Louise Erdrich has added another award to her resume. Last night, "The Round House," released on October 2, won the National Book Award for fiction.

Louise Erdrich – Turtle Mountain Band

Learning of her nomination while on her book tour in Nashville, Erdrich told the National Book Foundation.

“The first call I made was to my parents. It was early in the morning but I knew they'd be awake.”

The Round House, a book set on an Ojibwe Indian Reservation in North Dakota. Her fourteenth and newest book is a powerful coming-of-age story, a mystery novel that deals with American Indian culture and family. The Round House is a departure from your previous novels in that it's written from a single character's point of view.

Erdrich, who is a tribal member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, has authored many books, including, Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, Tracks, The Bingo Palace, Four Souls, The Painted Drum, The Plague Doves, Shadow Tag, among others.

She won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction for her 1984 Love Medicine. In 1987 Erdrich won the O. Henry Award for short story for Fleur that was published in Esquire in August 1986. Erdrich was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Plague Doves in 2009.

posted November 15, 2012 6:00 am est