David Treuer
Ojibwe author and academic
David Treuer is an Ojibwe writer and professor who has written novels, criticism and history. His book The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee was a National Book Award finalist.
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American Born 1970 in Washington, D.C., United States
About David Treuer
David Treuer was born in 1970 and belongs to the Ojibwe people, with roots on the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. At Princeton University he worked with Toni Morrison, Paul Muldoon and Joanna Scott, and he later earned a PhD in anthropology. His first novel, Little, appeared in 1995, followed by The Hiawatha in 1999 and The Translation of Dr. Apelles in 2006. That same year he also published Native American Fiction: A User's Manual, a work of criticism that stirred controversy. He has received a Pushcart Prize. His 2019 book The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee covers Native America from 1890 to the present. Since 2010 he has held a professorship in literature at the University of Southern California. He and his brother Anton have been leaders in language preservation and are working on a grammar of Ojibwe.