Some of the best books by Indigenous writers in the United States of America
November is Native American Heritage Month, so it's the perfect time to check out books by Indigenous authors.
From young adult fiction to literary fiction to horror stories, these authors are writing across many genres, with stories that are moving, captivating, and unforgettable. Here are some of our favorite books from Indigenous writers in the United States.
Firekeeper's Daughter
In this slow-burn mystery, half-Native former hockey player Daunis Fontaine goes undercover to help solve a murder she witnesses. Having never quite fit in anywhere, including on the Ojibwe reservation, Daunis is struggling to find her place in her community and iron out her own identity. Even as the investigation slowly unfolds, the real focus is Daunis's coming-of-age as she struggles with grief and with the realities of being a Native American woman in a world where Indigenous bodies are too often considered disposable.
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Our History is the Future: Standing Rock versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance
In 2016, a battle began over the plan to cut the Dakota Access Pipeline through Indigenous land. The powerful resistance of Standing Rock and its lessons have sent reverberations through progressive movements across the U.S. In this nonfiction account, Estes traces that resistance as well as other stories of Indigenous-led protest movements throughout our history, exposing how many infrastructure projects and the ensuing environmental damage have been intertwined with Indigenous struggles to survive.
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Poet Warrior: A Memoir
Harjo was the first Native American poet to serve as U.S. poet laureate for good reason—her poems are rich, impactful, and charged with her experiences as a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. In her memoir, she shares her life story, writing of the people, stories, and ancestors who influenced her. She combines her prose with verse and song to best tell her story of growing up Indigenous and finding her voice.
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Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology
Indigenous writers from across North America write their eeriest, creepiest tales inspired by Native American communities, legends, and stories in this excellent collection of Indigenous horror. Doubles commit acts of violence while wearing your face; a tick swells with blood; a dangerous man collects souvenirs from the bodies of unsuspecting Indigenous people. Weshtigo, curses, and people with too much power haunt these tales that also contend with the struggle of being Indigenous in the modern-day world.
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Postcolonial Love Poem: Poems
"The first violence against any body of water / is to forget the name its creator first called it," Natalie DÃaz writes in this poetry collection. "Worse: forget the bodies who spoke that name." DÃaz is a Mojave author who writes with searing poetry about Indigenous identity and erasure, queerness, fear, and much more. Her Pulitzer-winning collection is a powerful book that centers images of water, the river, and the body, using them to shape rich verse.
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Nothing More of This Land: Community, Power, and the Search for Indigenous Identity
Not many people realize that vacation spot Martha's Vineyard is the native land of the Wampanoag people. It's easy not to know, really, if you're willing not to look too closely, because three-quarters of the Wampanoag population can't afford to live there anymore. Lee, an Aquinnah Wampanoag journalist, writes a powerful work of nonfiction about Indigenous displacement and erasure, and what it means to be a community disconnected from its land.
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Old School Indian
Abe Jacobs has been away from home for a long, long time when he decides to go back to the Saint Regis Tribe, where he grew up, in order to get healing from his uncle for a fatal illness. Almost a coming-of-age novel despite Abe's ripe age of 43, Curtis's book is one of reconnecting with Indigenous blood, family, and heritage, and learning to face the prejudices he's internalized, the walls he's put up, and ultimately, what it really means to be the Ahkwesáhsne man he is.
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Big Chief
Over the weekend before the Tribal President election of Passage Rouge Nation, incumbent Mack Beck is willing to sacrifice a lot to secure a win. His childhood friend and current fixer Mitch Caddo a local boy who's returned to the rez after law school, is going to have a hard time keeping his hands clean.
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We Survived the Night: An Indigenous Reckoning
From the co-director of the Oscar-nominated documentary, Sugarcane, We Survived the Night interweaves oral history with hard-hitting journalism and a deeply personal father-son journey into a searing portrait of Indigenous survival, love, and resurgence.
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Fire Exit
Charles Lamosway is already spread awfully thin caring for his alcoholic friend and his aging mom, but then his neighbor goes missing and a secret he's kept buried for years—that his neighbor is actually his daughter—now needs to be unearthed.
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Elatsoe
Elatsoe is the debut novel from Lipan Apache author Darcie Little Badger. Elatsoe has the magical ability to raise the spirits of dead animals, including her ghost dog Kirby. After her cousin dies, everyone assumes it was a car accident, but one night Elatsoe is visited by the ghost of her cousin, who tells her he was murdered. With no one else willing to investigate the death, Elatsoe takes it upon herself and in doing so, she uncovers a dark conspiracy that involves a whole town.
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The Only Good Indians
When four American Indian men go hunting, they make a terrible decision that they can't take back. Years have passed, and while the four men are trying their best to put the past behind them, the past will not let them go. In fact, each of them is being hunted by a dark entity that is hellbent on revenge and will not let a single one of them go unpunished.
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Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
Author Robin Wall Kimmerer is a botanist and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Braiding Sweetgrass is her reflection on nature, plants, and animals, and how we can see these parts of life as our oldest teachers. Weaving together the mythical and the scientific, Kimmerer shows how every living thing in nature can tell us a story and teach us, if only we can remember how to listen.
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There, There
There, There is an award-winning novel that follows twelve Native American characters living in and around Oakland, California. While each of these characters have their own conflicts—alcoholism, abusive relationships, financial strife, and grief and loss—all of them are, in some way, coming to terms with their identity and what it means to them to be Native American. Eventually, all the characters and their storylines come together at the first Big Oakland Pow Wow.
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Heart Berries: A Memoir
In this poetic coming-of-age memoir, Terese Marie Mailhot looks back on her childhood growing up in the Seabird Island Band in the Pacific Northwest. As an adult, Mailhot is experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II disorder. She writes her story to look back at who she was and discover who she is now. Heart Berries is a candid opening of the author's heart through the hardest moments of her life.
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The Night Watchman
This novel is based on the author's grandfather who worked as a night watchman and fought against Native dispossession. The protagonist of this novel, Thomas Wazhashk, challenges the U.S. Congress’s attempt to violate treaties and dispossess his tribe, taking his grievances all the way to Washington, D.C.
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The Seed Keeper
The Seed Keeper follows Rosalie Iron Wing, who has grown up in the woods with her father, Ray, who taught her the origins of the Dakhóta people. Then one morning, Ray goes out to check his traps and never comes back. So Rosalie is sent to live with a foster family. It's not until 20 years later that Rosalie returns to her home in the woods to confront her past and try to reconnect with her Dakhóta roots.
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The Removed
The Removed is a novel steeped in Cherokee history and mythology. It's the story of the Echota family, who have been grieving since their teenage son, Ray-Ray, was killed in a police shooting 15 years ago. Now, with the family's annual bonfire approaching, the family gets together to both celebrate a Cherokee National Holiday and honor the memory of Ray-Ray.
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Black Sun
Black Sun is inspired by the civilizations of the pre-Columbian Americas. In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice usually signifies renewal, but this year the winter solstice also coincides with a solar eclipse, which the Sun Priest warns signifies an unbalancing of the world. Xiala is a disgraced Teek who is sailing a ship towards Tova, set to arrive on the solstice. With her is a young man named Serapio. He seems harmless enough, but his need to arrive in Tova before the eclipse suggests there's more to him than meets the eye.
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House Made of Dawn
House Made of Dawn is the Pulitzer Prize-winning story of Abel, a young Native American who comes home from war and finds himself caught between the Native American traditions of his family and the contemporary world of industrial America. The novel is a tragic story of the lasting effects of war and cultural displacement.
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An Indigenous People's History of the United States
This book is a part of American history you won't hear about in school. In An Indigenous People's History of the United States, acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz reveals the hidden history of genocide and oppression against Indigenous people in the United States of America. This is the history of the United States as told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples, revealing just how hard more than 500 federally recognized Indigenous nations and their people have fought to have a space and a voice in this country.
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