The dispossessed tribal members would then enjoy the rights and responsibilities of full-fledged American citizenship and assimilation. With HCR 108, Congress had resolved to divest Native Americans of the last vestiges of their tribal lands, to “emancipate” them from their dependence upon government health care, food allotments and schools, and to relocate them to nearby cities. With The Night Watchman, Erdrich turns to her family’s history for her inspiration.Īt the center of The Night Watchman is House Concurrent Resolution (HCR) 108, passed in August 1953, which was nothing less than an effort on the part of Washington to abolish Indian reservations and, thereby, the tribes themselves. The Round House (2012) won the National Book Award, and Erdrich has received a number of lifetime achievement awards, including the Library of Congress Award for American Fiction. Her first novel, Love Medicine (1984), won the National Book Critics Circle Award, as did her novel LaRose (2016). Born of a German-American father and a mother of Chippewa and French descent, Erdrich has written mainly, but not exclusively, about Native American life, particularly in her home state of North Dakota.

Louise Erdrich is one of America’s most celebrated living authors. Winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, The Night Watchman is an entertaining and edifying historical novel that tells the story of the Turtle Mountain tribe of Chippewa in North Dakota as they fight to survive the US government’s attempt in 19 to “terminate” them. The Night Watchman (Harper Collins, 2020) is American author Louise Erdrich’s 12th novel. The Night Watchman, New York: HarperCollins, 2020, 464 pp.

The night watchman novel