Michael Dorris
| Michael Dorris | |
|---|---|
| Born | Michael Anthony Dorris January 30, 1945 Louisville, Kentucky, US |
| Died | April 10, 1997 (aged 52) Concord, New Hampshire, US |
| Pen name | Milou North |
| Occupation | Academic, fiction writer |
| Nationality | American |
| Genre | Children's fiction, memoir |
| Subject | Native American Studies |
| Notable works |
|
| Spouse | Louise Erdrich (m. 1981) |
| Children | 6 |
Michael Anthony Dorris (January 30, 1945 – April 10, 1997) was an American novelist and scholar who was the first Chair of the Native American Studies program at Dartmouth. His works include the memoir, The Broken Cord (1989) and the novel, A Yellow Raft in Blue Water (1987). He was married to author Louise Erdrich and the two frequently collaborated in their writing. He committed suicide in 1997 while police were investigating allegations that he had abused his daughters.
The Broken Cord, which won the 1989 National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction, helped provoke Congress to approve legislation to warn of the dangers of drinking alcohol during pregnancy.
Michael Dorris was born in Louisville, Kentucky to Jim and Mary Besy (Burkhardt) Dorris. His father died before Dorris was born (reportedly by suicide during WWII), and Dorris was raised as an only child by his mother, who became a secretary for the Democratic Party. It has been reported that two maternal relatives also help raise him, either two aunts, or an aunt and his maternal grandmother. In his youth he spent summers with his father's relatives on reservations in Washington and Montana. In an article published in New York magazine two months after Dorris's death, a reporter quoted the Modoc tribal historian as saying, "Dorris was probably the descendant of a white man named Dorris whom records show befriended the Modocs on the West Coast just before and after the Modoc War of 1873. Even so, there is no record of a Dorris having been enrolled as an Indian citizen on the Klamath rolls." The Washington Post provides a contrary report of Dorris's descent: "Dorris' father's mother, who was white, became pregnant by her Indian boyfriend, but, the times being what they were, she could not marry him. She later married a white man named Dorris."
He received his BA (cum laude) in English and Classics from Georgetown University in 1967 and a Masters degree from Yale University in 1971 in anthropology, after beginning studies for a theater degree. He did his field work in Alaska studying the effects of off shore drilling on the Native Alaskan communities. In 1972, Dorris helped form Dartmouth College's Native American Studies department, and was its first Chair.
...
Wikipedia