David Treuer – författare

FINALIST FOR THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARDCHOSEN BY BARACK OBAMA AS ONE OF HIS FAVOURITE BOOKS OF 2019 LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCEA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

''An informed, moving and kaleidoscopic portrait... Treuer''s powerful book suggests the need for soul-searching about the meanings of American history and the stories we tell ourselves about this nation''s past'' New York Times Book Review, front pageThe received idea of Native American history has been that American Indian history essentially ended with the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee. Not only did one hundred fifty Sioux die at the hands of the U.S. Cavalry, the sense was, but Native civilization did as well.

Growing up Ojibwe on a reservation in Minnesota, training as an anthropologist, and researching Native life past and present for his nonfiction and novels, David Treuer has uncovered a different narrative. Because they did not disappear - and not despite but rather because of their intense struggles to preserve their language, their traditions, their families, and their very existence- the story of American Indians since the end of the nineteenth century to the present is one of unprecedented resourcefulness and reinvention.

In The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, Treuer melds history with reportage and memoir. Tracing the tribes'' distinctive cultures from first contact, he explores how the depredations of each era spawned new modes of survival. The devastating seizures of land gave rise to increasingly sophisticated legal and political maneuvering that put the lie to the myth that Indians don''t know or care about property. The forced assimilation of their children at government-run boarding schools incubated a unifying Native identity. Conscription in the US military and the pull of urban life brought Indians into the mainstream and modern times, even as it steered the emerging shape of self-rule and spawned a new generation of resistance. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is the essential, intimate story of a resilient people in a transformative era.

An entirely new approach to reading, understanding, and enjoying Native American fictionThis book has been written with the narrow conviction that if Native American literature is worth thinking about at all, it is worth thinking about as literature. The vast majority of thought that has been poured out onto Native American literature has puddled, for the most part, on how the texts are positioned in relation to history or culture.Rather than create a comprehensive cultural and historical genealogy for Native American literature, David Treuer investigates a selection of the most important Native American novels and, with a novelist''s eye and a critic''s mind, examines the intricate process of understanding literature on its own terms.Native American Fiction: A User''s Manual is speculative, witty, engaging, and written for the inquisitive reader. These essays—on Sherman Alexie, Forrest Carter, James Fenimore Cooper, Louise Erdrich, Leslie Marmon Silko, and James Welch—are rallying cries for the need to read literature as literature and, ultimately, reassert the importance and primacy of the word.

A daring new novel that "may be David Treuer''s best book" (Charles Baxter)He realizes he has discovered a document that could change his life forever.Dr Apelles, Native American translator of Native American texts, lives a diligent existence. He works at a library and, in his free time, works on his translations. Without his realizing it, his world has become small. One day he stumbles across an ancient manuscript only he can translate. What begins as a startling discovery quickly becomes a vital quest—not only to translate the document but to find love. Through the riddle of Dr Apelles''s heart, The Translation of Dr Apelles explores the boundaries of human emotion, charts the power of the language to both imprison and liberate, and maps the true dimensions of the Native American experience. As Dr Apelles''s quest nears its surprising conclusion, the novel asks the reader to speculate on whose power is greater: The imaginer or the imagined? The lover or the beloved?In this brilliant mystery of letters in the tradition of Calvino, Borges, and Saramago, David Treuer excavates the persistent myths that belittle the contemporary Native American experience and lays bare the terrible power of the imagination.

Back in print, with a new introduction, the memorable debut by the author of The Heartbeat of Wounded KneeThe grave we dug for my brother Little remained empty even after we filled it back in. And nobody was going to admit it.So begins Little, first published by Graywolf Press in 1995 when David Treuer was just twenty-four. The narrative unfolds to reveal the deeply entwined stories of the three generations of Little’s family, including Stan, a veteran of the Vietnam War who believes Little is his son; Duke and Ellis, the twins who built the first house in Poverty after losing their community to smallpox and influenza; Jeannette, the matriarch who loved both Duke and Ellis and who walked hundreds of miles to reunite with them. Each of these characters carries a piece of the mystery of Little’s short life.With rhythmic and unadorned prose, Treuer uncovers in even the most frost-hardened ground the resilience and humor of life in Poverty. From the unbearable cruelty of the institutions that systematically unraveled Native communities at the turn of the century, to the hard and hollow emptiness of a child’s grave, Treuer has orchestrated a moving account of kinship and survival.In his new introduction, Treuer, now among the foremost writers of his generation, reflects on the germ of this novel and how it fits into his lasting body of work centered on Native life. More than a quarter of a century later, Little proves as vital and moving as ever.