Books by Native American Authors and Where to Start

You want to read books by Native American authors, you search for a list, and you get either a few titles you had to read in school or a list of novels about Native people written by people who are not Native. Knowing where to start is harder than it should be, especially when you want work that is both good and actually from the communities it describes.

This guide is built for that first step. It groups books by what kind of reader you are, explains why each one is a good entry point, and adds a few habits that make the reading go further than a single book.

Why it matters who wrote the book

For most of the twentieth century, the best known books about Native life in North America were written by outsiders: anthropologists, historians, novelists and missionaries. Some were careful and some were not, but almost all of them looked in from the outside. Native writers have always been writing too, and since the late 1960s their work has reached a much wider audience.

Reading Native authors changes more than the facts on the page. It changes who is treated as the expert, what counts as the important part of the story, and which events are the center rather than the background. It also connects to a much older practice. Much of what these writers draw on comes from family and community storytelling, the kind of knowledge we discuss in how oral history preserves what written records miss.

Books by Native American authors for fiction readers

If you read novels, these are strong places to begin. They are listed roughly from most accessible to most demanding.

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley (2021). Boulley is a citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. It is a fast thriller about a young Ojibwe woman drawn into an FBI investigation, and it is filled with community life, language and family. Shelved as young adult, it is widely read by adults.
There There by Tommy Orange (2018). Orange is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. Twelve narrators head toward a powwow in Oakland. It is a portrait of urban Native life, and it was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich (2020). Erdrich, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, based this novel on her grandfather's fight against federal termination policy in the 1950s. It won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko (1977). Silko is from Laguna Pueblo. A veteran returns from the Second World War and searches for healing. It blends prose and traditional story, and it rewards slow reading.
House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday (1968). Momaday was Kiowa. The novel won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize, and many critics date a wider recognition of Native literature from that award.

If you like genre fiction, try The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones (Blackfeet), a horror novel from 2020, or Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger (Lipan Apache), a young adult mystery with ghosts.

Nonfiction and history to start with

For readers who want history, policy or ideas, these work well as first books:

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee by David Treuer (2019). Treuer is Ojibwe from Leech Lake. It covers Native life from 1890 to the present and argues against the idea that Native history ended with the massacre.
The Rediscovery of America by Ned Blackhawk (2023). Blackhawk is Western Shoshone. A full retelling of United States history with Native nations at the center. It won the National Book Award for Nonfiction.
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (2013). Kimmerer is a botanist and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Essays that bring together plant science and Indigenous knowledge. A very gentle entry point.
Custer Died for Your Sins by Vine Deloria Jr. (1969). Deloria was Standing Rock Sioux. Sharp, funny and angry, this book shaped Native political writing for decades. Some of it is dated, which is part of what makes it useful as a record of its time.

Poetry worth reading aloud

Joy Harjo, a member of the Muscogee Nation, served as the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United States from 2019 to 2022. Her collection An American Sunrise (2019) is a good first book. Natalie Diaz, who is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Community, won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Postcolonial Love Poem. Diaz has also worked on revitalizing the Mojave language, a subject close to our piece on reclaiming Indigenous language.

The classic I would not start with

For many readers, the first book on Native history they meet is Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown, published in 1970. It is still recommended constantly, and it did real good. It sold millions of copies and made many Americans confront the violence of the nineteenth century for the first time.

I would not make it your first book, though. Brown was not Native, and the book ends in 1890, which leaves the impression that Native history is a story of defeat that finished more than a century ago. That framing is exactly what many Native writers have pushed back against. Treuer chose his title as a direct reply. Read The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee first, then read Brown if you want to see how the story was told to an earlier generation. Reading them in that order teaches you something about who gets to tell history.

How to read further and support Native writers

A few habits help the reading go further:

Read the author's note. Many Native authors explain their nation, their community connection and what they chose not to share. It shapes how you read the book.
Follow the publishers and bookstores. Some Native-owned bookstores carry deep catalogs of Native authors, including small presses that never reach chain stores. Erdrich herself owns one in Minneapolis, Birchbark Books.
Read beyond one nation. There are 574 federally recognized tribes in the United States, plus many state recognized and unrecognized nations, and more across the border in Canada. A single book cannot speak for all of them.
Bring it into a classroom or club. If you run a reading group or teach, invite an Indigenous author or scholar to speak. Our guide to inviting an Indigenous guest speaker covers honoraria, timing and how to ask respectfully.

Start with one novel and one work of nonfiction. Read them in the same month. You will notice connections between them that neither book makes on its own.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good first book by a Native American author?

For fiction, There There by Tommy Orange or Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley are both accessible and widely loved. For nonfiction, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer is a gentle start, and The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee by David Treuer is a strong first history.

Which Native American authors have won the Pulitzer Prize?

N. Scott Momaday won for fiction in 1969 for House Made of Dawn. Louise Erdrich won for fiction in 2021 for The Night Watchman, and Natalie Diaz won for poetry the same year for Postcolonial Love Poem. Tommy Orange's There There was a finalist in 2019.

How can I tell if a book about Native people is by a Native author?

Check the author biography and note whether it names a specific nation or community. Be cautious of vague claims of distant ancestry without any community connection. Native-owned bookstores and tribal college libraries are good places to find reliable recommendations.