David Treuer

Uncommon card · No. 141030

David Treuer (born 1970) is an American writer, critic, and academic. As of 2026, he has published eight books, with his most recent,The Savage Mind: An American Legacy, released on October 6, 2026. His 2019 book, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present, was a National Book Award Finalist. Since 2010 he has been a professor of literature at University of Southern California. In 2006 his novel The Translation of Dr. Apelles was ranked as among the best of the year by The Washington Post and other major publications. That year he also published a collection of essays on literature, Native American Fiction: A Users Manual, which stirred controversy by criticizing major writers of the tradition. He concluded, "Native American fiction does not exist." Treuer and his brother Anton have been leaders in language preservation. They are working on an Ojibwe language grammar.

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