Louise Erdrich is one of the most gifted, prolific, and challenging of contemporary Native American novelists. Born in 1954 in Little Falls, Minnesota, she grew up mostly in Wahpeton, North Dakota, where her parents taught at Bureau of Indian Affairs schools. Her fiction reflects aspects of her mixed heritage: German through her father, and French and Ojibwa through her mother. She is the author of the many novels including Love Medicine; The Beet Queen, and The Bingo Palace, and The Round House, two poetry collections and numerous short stories. Her newest book LaRose is her first novel since the publication of The Round House (winner of the 2012 National Book Award). She lives in Minnesota where she runs independent bookstore called The Birchbark.