Must Reads by Indigenous Authors

Updated October 14, 2024
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Wandering stars
Orange, Tommy
Paper Book
The eagerly awaited follow-up to Pulitzer Prize finalist Tommy Orange's breakout best seller There There--winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award, the John Leonard Prize, the American Book Award, and one of the New York Times Ten Best Books of the Year--Wandering Stars traces the...
Project 562 : changing the way we see Native America
Wilbur, Matika
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER . A photographic and narrative celebration of contemporary Native American life and cultures, alongside an in-depth examination of issues that Native people face, by celebrated photographer and storyteller Matika Wilbur of the Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes. ...
Firekeeper's daughter
Boulley, Angeline
Paper Book
A PRINTZ MEDAL WINNER! A MORRIS AWARD WINNER! AN AMERICAN INDIAN YOUTH LITERATURE AWARD YA HONOR BOOK! A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB YA PICK An Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller Soon to be adapted at Netflix...
Probably Ruby : a novel
Bird-Wilson, Lisa
Paper Book
An Indigenous woman adopted by white parents goes in search of her identity in this unforgettable debut novel about family, race, and history. Finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award . "Engaging . . . Ruby never disappoints with her big heart and outrageous sense of...
Indian burial ground
Medina, Nick
Paper Book
A man lunges in front of a car. An elderly woman silently drowns herself. A corpse sits up in its coffin and speaks. On this reservation, not all is what it seems, in this new spine-chilling mythological horror from the author of Sisters of the Lost Nation. All...
Bad Cree : a novel
Johns, Jessica
Paper Book
Blood sisters
Lillie, Vanessa
Paper Book
A visceral and compelling mystery about a Cherokee archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs who is summoned to rural Oklahoma to investigate the disappearance of two women...one of them her sister. There are secrets in the land. As an archeologist for the...
Remember
Harjo, Joy
Paper Book
THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER .AN AMERICAN INDIAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION HONOR BOOK.A BOSTON GLOBE-HORN BOOK HONOR AWARD . NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY School Library Journal . Publishers Weekly . The Horn Book .NPR . The Bulletin . Kirkus Reviews
Poet warrior : a memoir
Harjo, Joy
Paper Book
Joy Harjo, the first Native American to serve as U.S. poet laureate, invites us to travel along the heartaches, losses, and humble realizations of her "poet-warrior" road. A musical, kaleidoscopic, and wise follow-up to Crazy Brave, Poet Warrior reveals how Harjo came to write poetry of...
An American sunrise : poems
Harjo, Joy
Paper Book
National Bestseller A stunning new volume from the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United States, informed by her tribal history and connection to the land. In the early 1800s, the Mvskoke people were forcibly removed from their original lands east of the...
And then she fell
Elliott, Alicia
Paper Book
And Then She Fell is an unflinching and fiercely witty debut novel of Indigenous life, womanhood and mental health, heralding the arrival of an important and urgent new voice in genre-bending fiction.
Woman of light : a novel
Fajardo-Anstine, Kali
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A "dazzling, cinematic, intimate, lyrical" (Roxane Gay) epic of betrayal, love, and fate that spans five generations of an Indigenous Chicano family in the American West, from the author of the National Book Award finalist Sabrina & Corina  ...
Woman of light : a novel
Fajardo-Anstine, Kali
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A "dazzling, cinematic, intimate, lyrical" (Roxane Gay) epic of betrayal, love, and fate that spans five generations of an Indigenous Chicano family in the American West, from the author of the National Book Award finalist Sabrina & Corina  ...
Never whistle at night : an Indigenous dark fiction anthology
Hawk, Shane
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER . SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD NOMINEE FOR BEST EDITED ANTHOLOGY . BRAM STOKER AWARD NOMINEE FOR SUPERIOR ACHIEVEMENT IN AN ANTHOLOGY . LOCUS AWARD FINALIST A bold, clever, and sublimely sinister collection that dares to ask the question- "Are you ready to be un...
Kapaemahu
Wong-Kalu, Hinaleimoana
Paper Book
An Indigenous legend about how four extraordinary individualsof dual male and female spirit, or Mahu, brought healing arts from Tahiti to Hawaii, based on the Academy Award-contending short film. In the 15th century, four Mahu sail from Tahiti to Hawaii and share their gifts of...
Dog flowers : a memoir
Geller, Danielle
Paper Book
A daughter returns home to the Navajo reservation to retrace her mother's life in a memoir that is both a narrative and an archive of one family's troubled history.   "A candid and achingly fractured memoir of [Geller's] mother, her family, her Navajo heritage and her own...
Sisters of the lost nation
Medina, Nick
Paper Book
Named a Most Anticipated Book by Barnes and Noble∙BuzzFeed ∙ GoodReads ∙ Book Riot ∙ CrimeReads ∙ Ms. Magazine ∙ SheReads ∙ Amazon Editor's Pick ∙ Tor.com∙ and more! A young Native girl's hunt...
Sisters of the lost nation
Medina, Nick
Paper Book
Named a Most Anticipated Book by Barnes and Noble∙BuzzFeed ∙ GoodReads ∙ Book Riot ∙ CrimeReads ∙ Ms. Magazine ∙ SheReads ∙ Amazon Editor's Pick ∙ Tor.com∙ and more! A young Native girl's hunt...
Wandering stars
Orange, Tommy
Paper Book
The eagerly awaited follow-up to Pulitzer Prize finalist Tommy Orange's breakout best seller There There--winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award, the John Leonard Prize, the American Book Award, and one of the New York Times Ten Best Books of the Year--Wandering Stars traces the...
At the mountain's base
Sorell, Traci
Paper Book
A family, separated by duty and distance, waits for a loved one to return home in this lyrical picture book celebrating the bonds of a Cherokee family and the bravery of history-making women pilots. At the mountain's base sits a cabin under an old hickory tree. And in that cabin...
Hearts unbroken
Smith, Cynthia Leitich
Paper Book
Winner of an American Indian Youth Literature Award New York Times best-selling author Cynthia Leitich Smith turns to realistic fiction with the thoughtful story of a Native teen navigating the complicated, confusing waters of high school -- and first love. ...
Firekeeper's daughter
Boulley, Angeline
Paper Book
A PRINTZ MEDAL WINNER! A MORRIS AWARD WINNER! AN AMERICAN INDIAN YOUTH LITERATURE AWARD YA HONOR BOOK! A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB YA PICK An Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller Soon to be adapted at Netflix...
Empire of wild : a novel
Dimaline, Cherie
Paper Book
"Deftly written, gripping and informative. Empire of Wild is a rip-roaring read!"--Margaret Atwood, From Instagram "Empire of Wild is doing everything I love in a contemporary novel and more. It is tough, funny, beautiful, honest and propulsive--all the while telling a...
The only good Indians : a novel
Jones, Stephen Graham
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From USA TODAY bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones comes a "masterpiece" (Locus Magazine) of a novel about revenge, cultural identity, and the cost of breaking from tradition....
The only good Indians : a novel
Jones, Stephen Graham
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From USA TODAY bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones comes a "masterpiece" (Locus Magazine) of a novel about revenge, cultural identity, and the cost of breaking from tradition....
The heartbeat of Wounded Knee : native America from 1890 to the present
Treuer, David
Paper Book
Beginning with the tribes' devastating loss of land and the forced assimilation of their children at government-run boarding schools, he shows how the period of greatest adversity also helped to incubate a unifying Native identity. He traces how conscription in the US military and the pull of urban...
The heartbeat of Wounded Knee : native America from 1890 to the present
Treuer, David
Paper Book
Beginning with the tribes' devastating loss of land and the forced assimilation of their children at government-run boarding schools, he shows how the period of greatest adversity also helped to incubate a unifying Native identity. He traces how conscription in the US military and the pull of urban...
Even as we breathe : a novel
Clapsaddle, Annette Saunooke
Paper Book
Nineteen-year-old Cowney Sequoyah yearns to escape his hometown of Cherokee, North Carolina, in the heart of the Smoky Mountains. When a summer job at Asheville's luxurious Grove Park Inn and Resort brings him one step closer to escaping the hills that both cradle and suffocate him, he sees it as...
White horse
Wurth, Erika T.
Paper Book
"This ghost story is a perfect example of new wave horror that will also satisfy fans of classic Stephen King." --Silvia Moreno-Garcia, author of The Daughter of Doctor Moreau and Mexican Gothic Erika T. Wurth's White Horse is a gritty, vibrant debut novel...
To shape a dragon's breath
Blackgoose, Moniquill
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER . WINNER OF THE NEBULA AND LODESTAR AWARDS . FINALIST FOR THE ASTOUNDING, LOCUS, AND BRITISH FANTASY NEWCOMER AWARDS . "My favorite book of the year . . . a coming-of-age story that is cozy and hair-raising in equal measure."-Charlie Jane Anders, The Washington Post
The rediscovery of America : native peoples and the unmaking of U.S. history
Blackhawk, Ned
Paper Book
National Bestseller Winner of the 2023 National Book Award in Nonfiction * Finalist for the 2023 Los Angeles Times Book Award in History * Winner of 2024 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Nonfiction * Winner of the 2024 Mark Lynton History Prize ...
There there : a novel
Orange, Tommy
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A wondrous and shattering award-winning novel that follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize. A contemporary classic, this...

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