Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country (Literary Travel): Travelling through the Land of my Ancestors - Softcover

Erdrich, Louise

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9780792253730: Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country (Literary Travel): Travelling through the Land of my Ancestors

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0792253736 ISBN 13: 9780792253730

Publisher: National Geographic, 2006

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Setting out with her infant daughter and the baby's father, an Ojibwe spiritual leader and guide, Louise Erdrich embarks on an evocative journey to the islands of her forebearers in southern Ontario. They visit Lake of the Woods to visit powerful, centuries-old rock paintings that are still read by contemporary Ojibwe as ''teaching and dream guides'' and are also appreciated as art works. Then on to Rainy Lake, an island of real books. Erdrich compellingly writes about the Ojibwe spirits and songs, language, and sorrows that have passed down through generations. Set against commentary about her own family and contemporary life—and written in beautiful and powerful prose—this is an intensely thoughtful, intimate, and fascinating cultural excursion.

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From the Back Cover:

For more than three decades, bestselling author Louise Erdrich has enthralled readers with dazzling novels that paint an evocative portrait of Native American life. From her dazzling first novel, Love Medicine, to the National Book Award-winning The Round House, Erdrich's lyrical skill and emotional assurance have earned her a place alongside William Faulkner and Willa Cather as an author deeply rooted in the American landscape.

In Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country, Erdrich takes us on an illuminating tour through the terrain her ancestors have inhabited for centuries: the lakes and islands of southern Ontario. Summoning to life the Ojibwe's sacred spirits and songs, their language and sorrows, she considers the many ways in which her tribe--whose name derives from the word ozhibii'ige, "to write"--have influenced her. Her journey links ancient stone paintings with a magical island where a bookish recluse built an extraordinary library, and she reveals how both have transformed her.

A blend of history, mythology, and memoir, Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country is an enchanting meditation on modern life, natural splendor, and the ancient spirituality and creativity of Erdrich's native homeland--a long, elemental tradition of storytelling that is in her blood.

About the Author:

Louise Erdrich, daughter of an Ojibwe-French mother and a German-American father, is one of our foremost contemporary writers. Her first novel, Love Medicine, won the National Book Critics Circle Award and other prizes and launched a remarkable string of books that includes The Beet Queen, The Bingo Palace, Tales of Burning Love, and The Antelope Wife, among other triumphs. She lives in Minneapolis.

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