Louise Erdrich is a member of the Turtle Mountain band of Chippewa Indians. She is of mixed ancestry - German and American on her father's side and Chippewa and French on her mother's. She was born on 7 June 1954 in Little Falls, Minnesota, the eldest of Ralph and Rita Erdrich's seven children, and grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota where both her parents taught in the Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school. Between 1972 and 1976 Erdrich attended Dartmouth College, where she followed the newly created Native American Studies programme. After graduating she took a succession of jobs: teacher, waitress, life-guard and flag-signaller on a construction site. These experiences would provide useful material for her later novels. In 1979 she c…
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