Visiting Author David Treuer at MSUM Feb. 16
Author David Treuer will read from his newest book published this month, Prudence at 4 p.m. and discuss his book Rez Life at 7:30 p.m., both on Monday, Feb. 16 in Weld Hall Glasrud Auditorium. Both events are free and open to the public.
In his newest novel, Prudence (Riverhead; On-Sale February 5, 2015; 978-1-59463-308-9), Treuer pushes the boundaries of identity, crossing boundaries of race, gender, and sexual orientation to tell a haunting story of love, loss, and desire in World War II-era America. Having already earned rare praise from Toni Morrison, Prudence is a landmark novel that reaffirms David Treuer as “truly an original voice” (The San Francisco Chronicle) and cements his place as a significant voice in American fiction.
The son of an Ojibwe Indian mother and an Austrian Jewish father who fled the Holocaust, Treuer grew up straddling wildly different cultures, an experience that has deeply shaped his work. Treuer left the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota where he grew up to attend Princeton, earned a Ph.D. in anthropology, and embarked on a career as a writer, publishing three critically acclaimed novels and a nonfiction portrait of contemporary life “on the rez.”
He is the recipient of the Pushcart Prize, and his work has been named an editor’s pick by the Washington Post, Time Out, and City Pages. His essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Esquire, Slate.com, and the Washington Post.
The Washington Post writes: [Treuer] seems to want to do for Native American culture and literature what James Joyce did for the Irish: haul it into the mainstream of Western culture through sheer nerve and verve.”
Treuer teaches literature and creative writing at The University of Southern California. He divides his time between Los Angeles and The Leech Lake Reservation.
This lecture is sponsored by Diversity Initiatives, S.G. Comstock Fund, and Faculty Development.