The Shawl

Louise Erdrich (Karen Louise Erdrich) was born in Little Falls, Minnesota, on June 7, 1954. Of French and Ojibwe (also known as Chippewa and Anishinaabeg) ancestry, she is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. Although primarily a novelist, Erdrich has also published many works of short fiction, poetry, and children’s literature. Erdrich’s grandfather served as the longstanding chairman of their tribe, and her parents both taught at a Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school in North Dakota.

Although not raised on a reservation, Erdrich’s close ties to her tribe and deep bonds with her extended family helped her to cultivate both a strong sense of her Anishinaabeg identity and an interest in the history of Indigenous American peoples in her home region. These connections shaped her writing, for it was through listening to family lore and Anishinaabeg legends that she first developed an interest in storytelling. She began to craft short stories when she was still a young girl, and her father supported her burgeoning interest by paying her a nickel for each story that she completed.

Erdrich attended Dartmouth University from 1972 to 1976 as part of the school’s first group of admitted female students. During these years, she received further support for her writing and ultimately graduated with a BA in English.