Life and Literature of N. Scott Momaday

N. Scott Momaday, a writer, teacher, artist and storyteller, has devoted much of his life to safeguarding oral tradition and other aspects of Indian culture. He was born a Kiowa in Oklahoma and grew up in the Indian southwest. He earned a doctorate at Stanford University, joined its faculty, and taught American literature widely, including in Moscow.

An author of 13 books, including novels, poetry collections, literary criticism, and works on Native American culture, Momday won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969 for House of Dawn,which is considered the first novel of the Native American Renaissance.

Momaday has received numerous awards for his work, including the Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement, an Academy of American Poets Prize, an award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and the Premio Letterario Internationale “Mondello,” Italy’s highest literary award. He is recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as a fellowship for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He holds twelve honorary degrees from American colleges and universities.

In 2007, President George W. Bush awarded Momaday the National Medal of Arts. This year, he was honored with the 2018 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Lifetime Achievement.