Indigenous Authors to Read this November

November is Native American Heritage Month, and this year a friend asked me if I would join her in reading indigenous authors to celebrate. I readily agreed, and my to-read list for the month grew much too big too quickly. I don't think that I will be able to read all of the works listed below throughout November, but I am going to try my best. There is so much to explore, and I know that anything I don't finish this month, I will still plan on reading at some point, and my list will keep on growing. If you are wondering what to read next and would like to support indigenous authors, here are some of my top choices that I can't wait to delve into.

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Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers by Jake Skeets

I would like to read more poetry, and after a couple friends read this book this summer and recommended it, I added it to the top of my small pile of poetry to be read.

Drunktown, New Mexico, is a place where men “only touch when they fuck in a backseat.” Its landscape is scarred by violence: done to it, done on it, done for it. Under the cover of deepest night, sleeping men are run over by trucks. Navajo bodies are deserted in fields. Resources are extracted. Lines are crossed. Men communicate through beatings, and football, and sex. In this place, “the closest men become is when they are covered in blood / or nothing at all.”

But if Jake Skeets’s collection is an unflinching portrait of the actual west, it is also a fierce reclamation of a living place―full of beauty as well as brutality, whose shadows are equally capable of protecting encounters between boys learning to become, and to love, men. Read more...

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Race to the Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

It's been awhile since I read a young adult novel, and pretty much every Rick Riordan Presents book has been added to my reading list. I love learning about the myths and legends from around the world, and I love YA, so Race to the Sun seemed like a perfect fit for me.

Lately, seventh grader Nizhoni Begay has been able to detect monsters, like that man in the fancy suit who was in the bleachers at her basketball game. Turns out he's Mr. Charles, her dad's new boss at the oil and gas company, and he's alarmingly interested in Nizhoni and her brother, Mac, their Navajo heritage, and the legend of the Hero Twins. When Dad disappears the next day, leaving behind a message that says "Run!", the siblings and Nizhoni's best friend, Davery, are thrust into a rescue mission, which can only be done with the help of Navajo gods, all disguised as quirky "rez" personalities. After a series of dangerous--and mind-bending--trials, Nizhoni, Mac, and Davery finally reach the sun god, who outfits them with the weapons they need to take down Mr. Charles and the ancient monsters he has unleashed. But it will take more than weapons for Nizhoni to become the hero she was destined to be. . . .

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Strangelands by Darcie Little Badger, Magdalene Visaggio, and Guillermo Sanna

Comics are not something I read a lot of, but I started Saga this summer and realized it's a form that I could really see myself reading more of. In my quest to find indigenous authors, I was looking for a wide variety, and when I came across Strangelands, it sounded like something that might interest me and gave me an excuse to try to read another comic. Bonus for me: the first six volumes are available digitally from my library.

Two strangers find themselves inextricably tied together by inexplicable superpowers. Fighting their connection could mean destroying the world.
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Opposites attract? Elakshi and Adam Land aren’t married. In fact, a month ago, they were perfect strangers, dwelling in lands foreign to one another. But now, they’re forced to remain by one another’s side, for their separation could mean the planet’s demise. Their greatest challenge is to stay together — even if they have to tear the world apart to do so.

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Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

A friend mentioned they were going to read this and after reading the synopsis (and seeing the GORGEOUS book cover), I told them I would join them in reading it. I haven't read a fantasy novel in awhile and I'm excited for Black Sun to bring me back into the genre. A couple other friends are going to read it this month too, so it is a future buddy read of mine.

A god will return
When the earth and sky converge
Under the black sun

In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world.

Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain.

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There There by Tommy Orange

I've had There There on my to read pile for about a year now. I started it in February and then became sidetracked. I'm determined to finally read it this November. I've read the prologue two times and will read it again for a third time. I think it is something that every American should read at some point. 

One of The New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year and winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award, Tommy Orange’s wondrous and shattering bestselling novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize. Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle’s death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American—grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism. Hailed as an instant classic, There There is at once poignant and unflinching, utterly contemporary and truly unforgettable.

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The Round House by Louise Erdrich

I've never read Louise Erdrich, and while perusing her titles, I thought they all sounded good. It was hard to settle on one to try out for this book challenge, but I finally decided on The Round House. If I like it (or even if I don't) I think I'm going to try Antelope Woman next.

One of the most revered novelists of our time—a brilliant chronicler of Native-American life—Louise Erdrich returns to the territory of her bestselling, Pulitzer Prize finalist The Plague of Doves, transporting readers to the Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota. It is an exquisitely told story of a boy on the cusp of manhood who seeks justice and understanding in the wake of a terrible crime that upends and forever transforms his family. Riveting and suspenseful, arguably Erdrich's most accessible novel to date, The Round House is a page-turning masterpiece of literary fiction—at once a powerful coming-of-age story, a mystery, and a tender, moving novel of family, history, and culture.

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Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land by Toni Jensen

Carry is a new memoir that came out in 2020. I think this will be a difficult read as memoirs go, but it sounded like an important book to read and very relevant.

Toni Jensen grew up around guns: As a girl, she learned to shoot birds in rural Iowa with her father, a card-carrying member of the NRA. As an adult, she’s had guns waved in her face near Standing Rock, and felt their silent threat on the concealed-carry campus where she teaches. And she has always known that in this she is not alone. As a Métis woman, she is no stranger to the violence enacted on the bodies of Indigenous women, on Indigenous land, and the ways it is hidden, ignored, forgotten. Read more...

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New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color edited by Nisi Shawl

There are a couple short stories in New Suns written by indigenous authors, which I hope to tackle this November, and I will finish the rest of the stories soon after.

"There’s nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns,” proclaimed Octavia E Butler.

New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color showcases emerging and seasoned writers of many races telling stories filled with shocking delights, powerful visions of the familiar made strange. Between this book’s covers burn tales of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and their indefinable overlappings. These are authors aware of our many possible pasts and futures, authors freed of stereotypes and clichés, ready to dazzle you with their daring genius.

Unexpected brilliance shines forth from every page.