Travelling Through the Land of My Ancestors

For more than three decades, Louise Erdrich has won prizes, critical acclaim, and the hearts of readers the world over with her spellbinding novels of Native American life.

In Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country she travels, with her 18-month-old daughter, to the terrain her ancestors inhabited for centuries: the lakes and islands of southern Ontario. Summoning to life the Ojibwe’s sacred spirits and songs, their language and sorrows, Erdrich considers the many ways in which her tribe – whose name refers to the word ozhibii’ige, ‘to write’ – have influenced her. Her journey, through a landscape of breathtaking beauty, links ancient stone paintings with an island where a recluse built an extraordinary library, and she reveals how both have transformed her.

Drawing on the long, elemental tradition of storytelling that is in her blood, Louise Erdrich skilfully weaves together history, mythology and memoir to enchanting, evocative effect. Never before published in the UK, Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country is a captivating meditation on modern life, nature, and ancient spirituality and creativity. 

‘One of the greatest living American writers.’ Guardian

‘Louise Erdrich is the rarest kind of writer, as compassionate as she is sharp-sighted.’ Anne Tyler

‘The poet laureate of the contemporary Native American experience.’ Mail on Sunday