David Treuer

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 life brought Indians into the mainstream and modern times, even as it steered the emerging shape of their self-rule and spawned a new generation of resistance. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is an essential, intimate history - and counter-narrative - of a resilient people in a transformative era.

Native America from 1890 to the Present

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee

Novelist David Treuer examines Native American reservation life--past and present--illuminating misunderstood contemporary issues of sovereignty, treaty rights, and natural-resource conservation while also exploring crime and poverty, casinos and wealth,and the preservation of native language and culture.

An Indian's Journey Through Reservation Life

Rez Life

When his farewell departure for World War II is shattered by an act of violence involving an escaped German soldier, bombardier Frankie Washburn witnesses the unfolding of consequences that reverberate for several years. Online reading-group guide. By the author of Rez Life.

Prudence

Twenty years after Lester had found love in a aging train car and Simon had committed a horrible crime of passion, Simon returns to Minneapolis, where his mother moved them after leaving the reservation, and sets in motion a dramatic resolution to the decades-old transgression.

A Novel

The Hiawatha

Back in print, with a new introduction, the memorable debut by the author of The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee The 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.

Little

A User's Manual

Native American Fiction

"Dr. Apelles, Native American translator of Native American texts, lives a diligent existence. He works at a library and, in his free time, he works on his translations. One day he stumbles across an ancient manuscript only he can translate and realizes that he has made an unsettling discovery." "In this mystery of letters David Treuer tells two love stories. One takes us deep into the woods of mythology; the other along a labyrinthine archive with infinite corridors of unwanted books. In a novel that charts the progress of much loss against precious gains, Treuer asks to what lengths we will go to experience the "terrible pleasure" of love."--Jacket.

A Love Story

The Translation of Dr Apelles

The celebrated author of The Hiawatha presents an insider chronicle of the history of Indian reservations and contemporary Native American life that challenges misperceptions about such issues as sovereignty, treaty rights and natural-resource conservation, exploring topics ranging from political tensions and casinos to crime and cultural preservation.

On an Indian reservation in Minnesota, Poverty is the name given to a line of three wind-battered houses and an old battered Catalina. This is the home of Jeanette, Duke and Ellis. Here, rumours swirl like the snow drifts that alter the landscape in the bitter winter.

An entirely new approach to reading, understanding, and enjoying Native American fiction This 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.

Dr. Apelles, a translator of ancient texts, has made an unsettling discovery: a manuscript that has languished for years, written in a language that only he speaks. Moving back and forth between the scholar and his text, from a lone man in a labyrinthine archive to a pair of beautiful young Indian lovers in an unspoiled and snowy woodland, David Treuer weaves together two love stories. Enthralling and suspenseful, The Translation of Dr. Apelles dares to redefine the Native American novel.

The Translation of Dr. Apelles

A haunting and unforgettable novel about love, loss, race, and desire in World War II–era America. On a sweltering day in August 1942, Frankie Washburn returns to his family's rustic Minnesota resort for one last visit before he joins the war as a bombardier, headed for the darkened skies over Europe. Awaiting him are his hovering mother, his distant father, the Indian caretaker who's been more of a father to him than his own, and Billy, the childhood friend who over the years has become something much more intimate. But before the homecoming can be celebrated, the search for a German soldier, escaped from the POW camp across the river, explodes in a shocking act of violence, with consequences that will reverberate years into the future for all of them and that will shape how each of them makes sense of their lives. Powerful and wholly original, Prudence is a story of desire, loss, and the search for connection in a riven world; of race and class in a supposedly more innocent era. Most profoundly, it's about the secrets we choose to keep, the ones we can't help telling, and whom – and how – we’re supposed to love.

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is a story of Native American resilience and reinvention, adapted for young adults from the adult nonfiction book of the same name. Since the late 1800s, it has been believed that Native American civilization has been wiped from the United States. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee argues that Native American culture is far from defeated—if anything, it is thriving as much today as it was one hundred years ago. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee looks at Native American culture as it exists today—and the fight to preserve language and traditions. Adapted for young readers, this important young adult nonfiction book is perfect educational material for children and adults alike.

Life in Native America

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (Young Readers Adaptation)

« Un roman admirable et déchirant, subtil et envoutant, où s'entrelacent les destins tragiques d'une famille et de toute une communauté. »Toni Morrison, prix Nobel de littérature Aout 1942. Avant de s'engager dans l'armée de l'air, Frankie Washburn rend une dernière visite à ses parents dans leur résidence d'été du Minnesota. Il y retrouve Félix, le vieil Indien en charge du domaine, dont il est plus proche qu'il ne l'est de son propre père. Mais aussi Billy, un jeune métis avec qui il a grandi et auquel l'unissent des sentiments très forts. Ce jour-là, au cours d'une battue pour retrouver un prisonnier de guerre allemand échappé du camp voisin, les trois hommes se retrouvent mêlés à un tragique accident dont ils tairont à jamais circonstances. Ce drame va bouleverser le destin des Washburn et de leurs proches, à l'image du conflit qui ravage le monde. Un roman d'une puissance magnétique, aussi tendre que dévastateur, qui explore avec une infinie beauté les recoins les plus sombres de l'âme humaine.

David Treuer

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