Momaday, N. Scott (1934-2024), an American author of Kiowa and Cherokee ancestry, won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his first novel, House Made of Dawn (1968). Like Momaday’s other writings, the book deals with his Native American heritage. The novel explores the conflicts a young man faces between his Native American background and the white world.
Momaday’s writings blend fiction with Native American myth, tribal and family history, and autobiography. The Names: A Memoir (1976) includes memories of his childhood, tribal stories, and genealogy. The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969) combines Kiowa folk tales with recollections of the author’s childhood. The Ancient Child (1989) is a novel about a successful artist who is part Kiowa. He struggles with his art until a Kiowa woman returns him to his Native American roots.
Momaday’s poetry was published in Angle of Geese (1974); The Gourd Dancer (1976); In the Presence of the Sun (1992), which also includes stories and illustrations by the author; The Death of Sitting Bear (2020); and Dream Drawings (2022). Momaday also wrote Circle of Wonder: A Native American Christmas Story (1994). In Earth Keeper: Reflections on the American Land (2020), he considers the relationship between people and Earth.
Navarre Scott Momaday was born in Lawton, Oklahoma, and grew up on reservations in the Southwest. Momaday graduated from the University of New Mexico in 1958 and received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University in 1960 and 1963, respectively. He taught at several universities from 1963 to 1985. Momaday died on Jan. 24, 2024.
