Criticism > Poetry > Erdrich, Louise - Louise Erdrich and Jan George (interview date spring 1985)

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Louise Erdrich and Jan George (interview date spring 1985)

SOURCE: Erdrich, Louise, and Jan George. “Interview with Louise Erdrich.” North Dakota Quarterly 53, no. 2 (spring 1985): 240-7.

[In the following interview, Erdrich discusses her early works and talks about the life experiences that influence her poetry and fiction.]

“If there's a story there, that's enough,” says Louise Erdrich, who brings to life the history and mythology of her people and, therefore, her identity: Chippewa, German, woman, Midwesterner. By juxtaposing and weaving past and present together, Erdrich gives shape to the prairie land and its people in her book of poems, Jacklight, and her novel, Love Medicine (both 1984, Holt, Rinehart & Winston).

She draws on her years in North Dakota to create and recreate characters who endure despite adversity and affliction, who continue simply because they must go on. Erdrich says she is close to...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Louise Erdrich and Jan George (interview date spring 1985)
   2. James McKenzie (review date spring 1985)
   3. Vernon Shetley (review date April 1985)
   4. Richard K. Waters (review date 1985)
   5. Michael Loudon (review date winter 1986)
   6. Elaine Jahner (review date 1986)
   7. Louise Erdrich and Miriam Berkley (interview date 15 August 1986)
   8. Louise Erdrich and Joseph Bruchac (interview date 1987)
   9. Helen Jaskoski (review date winter 1991)
   10. Carolyn Dunn (review date 1993)
   11. P. Jane Hafen (essay date summer 1996)
   12. Robin Riley Fast (essay date 1999)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. Louise Erdrich
2. How to Analyze a Poem
3. Poetry