Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Native American scholar, and poet N. Scott Momaday has been hailed as “the dean of American Indian writers” by The New York Times. Hailed as the “consummate storyteller,” Momaday is a speaker nuanced in insight, beauty, and humor as he discusses his unique heritage, his career, creativity, and Native American history and culture. “In the oral tradition,” says Momaday, “stories are not told merely to entertain or instruct. They are told to be believed. Stories are realities lived and believed. They are true.”
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N. Scott Momaday
Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author
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Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Native American scholar, and poet N. Scott Momaday has been hailed as “the dean of American Indian writers” by The New York Times. Hailed as the “consummate storyteller,” Momaday is a speaker nuanced in insight, beauty, and humor as he discusses his unique heritage, his career, creativity, and Native American history and culture. “In the oral tradition,” says Momaday, “stories are not told merely to entertain or instruct. They are told to be believed. Stories are realities lived and believed. They are true.”
The first Native American to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel, House Made of Dawn, Momaday was named a UNESCO Artist for Peace and Oklahoma’s poet laureate, and a recipient of the 2007 National Medal of Arts for “introducing millions worldwide to the essence of Native American culture.” He is also the 2021 recipient of the Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry. Named for Robert Frost, the award is one of the oldest and most prestigious awards in American poetry. Previous winners of the Frost Medal include Marianne Moore, Gwendolyn Brooks, Allen Ginsberg, Adrienne Rich, Lucille Clifton, Marilyn Nelson, Susan Howe, and, most recently, Toi Derricotte.
His other awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the “Mondello,” Italy’s highest literary honor, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, and the 2019 Ken Burns American Heritage Prize, awarded to individuals who have advanced our understanding of America’s heritage.
Momaday is the author of numerous collections of poetry and novels, including In the Bear’s House (1999), In the Presence of the Sun: Stories and Poems, 1961-1991 (1992), The Gourd Dancer (1976), and most recently Earth Keeper: Reflections on the American Land (2020)and The Death of Sitting Bear: New and Selected Poems (2020), about which U. S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo has remarked: “These are the poems of a master poet, born of an age when our ears were not so bent towards digital production. Or should I say, these are the poems of a bear who has walked through several generations and stands before us, breathing clouds into a cold dawn, bearing this book of poetry.”
Momaday is the founder of The Buffalo Trust, dedicated to the preservation of Native American culture and heritage. He has held tenured teaching posts at UC Berkeley, Stanford University and the University of Arizona and received an honorary Doctor of Human Letters from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Dr. Momaday received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival. Presented by actor Robert Redford, the award was accompanied by a screening of Return to Rainy Mountain, a documentary by his daughter, filmmaker Jill Momaday, that recounts his life, career, and the cultural history of the Kiowa people. The American Masters profile of Momaday’s enigmatic life and works, Words from A Bear, premiered at Sundance in 2019.
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Topics
Topics
NATIVE WISDOM: PRINCIPLES FOR LIVING
ENCOUNTERING THE SACRED: HERITAGE, HEALING AND THE LAND
NATIVE AMERICAN ORAL TRADITION: THE STORIES & STORYTELLERS
Videos
Videos
A Man Made of Words: N. Scott Momaday
2008 Native Writers Series #1 - N. Scott Momaday
Books
House MADE OF Dawn
WORDS FROM A BEAR
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