CINCINNATI — Author Louise Erdrich, whose writings chronicle contemporary American Indian life through characters representing its mix of heritages and cultures, was announced Sunday as the winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize’s distinguished achievement award.
Erdrich was raised in North Dakota by an Ojibwe-French mother and a German-American father, and her works have reflected both sides of that heritage. With ties to North Dakota and Minnesota, Erdrich has said she lives in many places and is a member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa tribal nation.
Erdrich’s novel The Round House told the story of a teenage boy’s effort to investigate an attack on his mother on a fictional North Dakota reservation and of his struggle to come to terms with a crime of violence against his mother. It won the 2012 National Book Award for fiction.
Her first novel, Love Medicine, won the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award, and Erdrich’s The Plague of Doves was a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. That novel explored racial discord, loss of land and changing fortunes in North Dakota.
The Dayton prizes are meant to recognize literature’s power to foster peace, social justice and global understanding, and the distinguished achievement award is given for body of work. The award is called the Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award for the late U.S. diplomat who brokered the 1995 Dayton peace accords on Bosnia.
Erdrich, whose works also include poetry, short stories, nonfiction and children’s books, said in a statement that she does not consider herself a “peaceful” writer.
“I am a troubled one, longing for peace,” Erdrich said.