N. Scott Momaday

N. Scott Momaday
N. Scott Momaday (left) receiving the National Medal of Arts from U.S. president George W. Bush in 2007
Born	Navarre Scott Momaday (1934-02-27) February 27, 1934 (age 82) Lawton, Oklahoma, United States
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	Kiowa
Alma mater	University of New Mexico (B.A.) Stanford University (Ph.D.)
Genre	Fiction
Literary movement	Native American Renaissance
Notable works	House Made of Dawn (1969)

Navarre Scott Momaday (born February 27, 1934) — known as N. Scott Momaday — is a Kiowa novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. His novel House Made of Dawn was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969, and is considered the first major work of the Native American Renaissance. His follow-up work The Way to Rainy Mountain blended folklore with memoir. Momaday received the National Medal of Arts in 2007 for his work's celebration and preservation of indigenous oral and art tradition. He holds twenty honorary degrees from colleges and universities, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

On February 27 in 1934 Navarre Scott Momaday was born, in Lawton, Oklahoma. He was born in the Kiowa and Comanche Indian Hospital, and was then registered with having seven-eighths Indian blood. N. Scott Momaday was born of Natachee Scott Momaday, having a mix of English, Irish, French, and Cherokee blood while his father, Alfred Morris Momaday was a full blood Kiowa. His mother was a writer and his father, a painter. In 1935, when N. Scott Momaday was one year old, his family moved to Arizona, where both his father and mother became teachers on the reservation. Growing up in Arizona allowed Momaday to experience not only his father’s Kiowa traditions but also those of the Southwest including: Navajo, Apache, and Pueblo traditions as well. In 1946, Momaday moved to Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico, at twelve years old and lived there with his parents until his senior year of high school. After high school, Momaday attended college and was awarded his Bachelors of Arts degree in English in 1958, from the University of New Mexico. After continuing his education at Stanford University, he received his Ph.D. in English Literature in 1963.

Momaday received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1963. Momaday's doctoral thesis, The Complete Poems of Frederick Goddard Tuckerman, was published in 1965.

His novel House Made of Dawn led to the breakthrough of Native American literature into the American mainstream after the novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969.