Louise Erdrich Receives Library of Congress Prize

Acclaimed novelist Louise Erdrich has been named the recipient of the 2015 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, given annually to an American fiction writer whose “body of work is distinguished not only for its mastery of the art but for its originality of thought and imagination.” A panel of distinguished literary critics and authors recommended Erdrich to Librarian of Congress James H. Billington, who then selected Erdrich as this year’s winner.

Erdrich, 60, is the author of fourteen novels, including Love Medicine (HarperCollins, 1984), The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse (HarperCollins, 2001), The Plague of Doves (HarperCollins, 2009), and, most recently, The Round House (HarperCollins 2013), which won the National Book Award for fiction. Over her thirty-year career, Erdrich has received numerous awards and accolades, including the National Book Critics Circle Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship in the Creative Arts, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas. Born to a German-American father and a half French-American, half Ojibwe mother, much of Erdrich’s writing centers on Native American history.

In his announcement on Tuesday, Billington said of Erdrich: “Throughout a remarkable string of virtuosic novels, Louise Erdrich has portrayed her fellow Native Americans as no contemporary American novelist ever has, exploring—in intimate and fearless ways—the myriad cultural challenges that indigenous and mixed-race Americans face. In this, her prose manages to be at once lyrical and gritty, magical yet unsentimental, connecting a dreamworld of Ojibwe legend to stark realities of the modern-day. And yet, for all the bracing originality of her work, her fiction is deeply rooted in the American literary tradition.”

Erdrich will receive the award during the 2015 Library of Congress National Book Festival on September 5.

Now in its third year, the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction “seeks to commend strong, unique, enduring voices that—throughout long, consistently accomplished careers—have told us something new about the American experience.” E. L. Doctorow was awarded the prize in 2014 and Don DeLillo won the inaugural prize in 2013. The award was inspired by the former Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award, which was previously given to Herman Wouk in 2008, John Grisham in 2009, Isabel Allende in 2010, Toni Morrison in 2011, and Philip Roth in 2012.

Photo: Louise Erdrich (credit Allen Brisson-Smith/ New York Times)