N. Scott Momaday

N. Scott Momaday, one of the most prolific American Indian writers of the 20th century, grew up on several different Indian reservations in the American southwest. He first lived with his grandparents on the Kiowa reservation, and then moved to Arizona where his parents were teachers on Indian reservations. This exposed Momaday to the traditions of his Kiowa ancestry, as well as the traditions of other tribes, such as the Apache, Pueblo, and Navajo. After earning a degree in political science from the University of New Mexico, Momaday gravitated toward literature, eventually earning a doctorate in English literature from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Alongside his scholarly writing, Momaday pursued creative writing, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for his first novel, House Made of Dawn, in 1969. Since then, Momaday has worked as a professor while pursuing writing in many different genres: he is an accomplished poet, novelist, memoirist, and essayist. Momaday is also an active painter, and a member of the Kiowa Gourd Dance Society, which carries forward the ceremonial Kiowa Gourd Dance tradition.