Louise Erdrich Summary

Louise Erdrich (1954 -) American novelist, poet, essayist, short story writer, and author of children's books. Louise Erdrich: Introduction Louise Erdrich: Principal Works Louise Erdrich: Prima... Read more

Biography EssayThe writings of Louise Erdrich not only reflect her multilayered, complex background but also confound a variety of literary genre and cultural categories. Although she is known primari... Read more

Like William Faulkner and his Yoknapatawpha County, American writer Louise Erdrich has created her own mythical landscape in and around Argus, a fictional Red River Valley reservation town on the Minn... Read more

Louise Erdrich is one of the most important contemporary Native American writers. She writes poetry and some of the most sophisticated fiction and nonfiction being produced in the United States; her n... Read more

In the following excerpt, Stitt examines the mythic patterns explored in Jacklight. In Jacklight, her first book, Louise Erdrich arrives at an understanding of the modern world by discovering patte... Read more

In the following review, Thornton offers a positive appraisal of The Bingo Palace but expresses reservations about the novel's elements of magical realism. One of the dominant motifs in the ... Read more

In the following review, Halpern praises The Blue Jay's Dance for its realistic portrayal of early motherhood. I recently saw an ad for an instructional CD-ROM on "parenting, prenatal... Read more

In the following review, Klinkenborg praises Tales of Burning Love and conjectures that the book signals a fundamental change in Erdrich's writing. There has always been something fervent ab... Read more

In the following essay, Matchie discusses similarities between Tales of Burning Love and Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. In an address on National Public Radio, Amy Tan said she wo... Read more

In the following essay, Castillo examines issues of women and power in Erdrich's novels. Some years ago, when I was casting around for a topic for my Ph.D. thesis, I was struck, as I read so... Read more

In the following essay, Matchie outlines parallels between Love Medicine and Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Published in 1984, Love Medicine is about a tribe of Indians living in North Dakota.... Read more

In the following essay, Ruppert explains the ways in which Erdrich allows readers of Love Medicine, both Native and non-Native American, to experience the Native perspective in the text. Love Medic... Read more

In the following review, Rubenstein praises Erdrich's up-dated edition of Love Medicine. Louise Erdrich is not the first author to return to a previously published work of fiction to amend i... Read more

In the following review, Dunn offers a critical overview of the poems contained in Baptism of Desire. When classifying American Indian literature, literary critics seek to define just what is disti... Read more

In the following essay, Fast compares literary treatments of colonial Indian captivity stories, as represented in selected works of Erdrich and Maurice Kenny. Many contemporary American Indian writ... Read more

In the following review, Shetley offers a brief criticism of Jacklight. Louise Erdrich's rough-hewn poems view the American West they inhabit under two contrary aspects: as wild, daemonic na... Read more

In the following review, Loudon offers favorable criticism of Jacklight. Designating someone's “first book of poems” as such is typically an apologetic strategy. For Erdrich, &... Read more

In the following interview, Erdrich discusses the development of her career and her collaboration with husband Michael Dorris. When Louise Erdrich was a child in North Dakota, her father encouraged... Read more

In the following review, Jaskoski discusses Erdrich's second volume of poetry. In Catholic doctrine, Baptism of Desire has a rather technical meaning: a person who is unable to manage conven... Read more