Ten Books By Native Authors to Read This Thanksgiving

November 20, 2023

Literature

Nesha Ruther

Writer at Bond & Grace

Despite the fall foliage and delicious food, Thanksgiving is, well, a complicated holiday. The speed which you can go from sharing heartfelt expressions of gratitude with family to arguing about politics with Uncle Howard is enough to give anyone emotional whiplash. The feelings of warmth and celebration, paired with discomfort over the origins of Thanksgiving, are ones we know well.

But maybe that’s the beauty of the holiday, that it allows us to hold multiple truths in the palm of our hands. We love this holiday of food and festivity, and we’ve long since stopped believing in the story where the pilgrims and the Native Americans all sat happily around the table.

This year, bring some literary reflection to your Thanksgiving feast with ten books written by Native American authors. These stories, from novels to poetry to nonfiction, investigate the multitude of experiences that come with being Native in the United States. Despite a fraught and painful history, Native communities remain diverse and vibrant today, and are worthy of a spot on our reading list.

We promise the turkey will still taste just as good.

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The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich

Winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize, this captivating story is inspired by the author’s grandfather, who fought against the United States government’s efforts to dispossess Native Americans in the 1950s.

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The Removed by Brandon Hobson

Part folklore, part family drama, this painfully beautiful novel uses Cherokee myths and history to tell the story of a family reckoning with the tragic death of their son.

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The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

This classic coming-of-age story follows Junior, an aspiring cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation who moves to an all-white high school where the only other Native American is the school mascot.

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The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

A modern horror novel and future classic, this beautiful and unsettling story follows the lives of four American Indian men and their families as they are haunted by a disturbing, deadly event that took place in their youth.

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Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz

In this National Book Award Finalist, poet Natalie Diaz creates a stunning lyrical landscape that investigates the wounds America has inflicted on Indigenous people’s bodies, and reclaims those bodies as a site of beauty and desire.

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Little Big Bully by Heid E. Erdrich

This heartbreaking and powerful collection of poetry chronicles Native women’s resistance against both institutional and interpersonal violence.

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An American Sunrise by Joy Harjo

Joy Harjo was the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United States, and the title is well-earned in this gorgeous collection that recounts the author’s return to her family’s ancestral lands in Mississippi.

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Carry by Toni Jensen

This gripping memoir charts the authors’ relationship to guns and violence, from growing up shooting in rural Iowa, to protesting at Standing Rock, Jensen seamlessly merges the personal with the political and the past with the present.

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The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee by David Truer

In this critical work of nonfiction, David Truer disproves the idea that Native American history ended in 1890 with the massacre at Wounded Knee. Truer, the son of an Ojibwe mother and Jewish Holocaust-surviver father, uses brilliant scholarship to uncover a different narrative.

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Five Little Indians by Michelle Good

This novel follows five friends who survive a brutal church-run residential school over decades as they come of age and struggle to find their place in the world among the trauma inflicted upon them.

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Just like any good meal should contain notes of sweet and savory, bright and bitter, a deeper and richer understanding of ourselves and our country emerges when we challenge our understanding of American History and our place in it. This Thanksgiving, give thanks for these incredible Native authors and the stories they share. Happy reading, and happy eating!