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Communication Associate: Public Relations | Lori Melton | lmelton@d.umn.edu | (218) 726-8830
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October 7, 2014
Linda LeGarde Grover | American Indian Studies | (218) 726-7723 | lgrover@d.umn.edu
Heather Skinner | University of Minnesota Press | (612) 627-1932 | presspr@umn.edu


Award-Winning Author Releases The Road Back to Sweetgrass

The Road Back to Sweetgrass

Duluth, MN — Linda LeGarde Grover, an associate professor in American Indian Studies, is receiving accolades for her new novel The Road Back to Sweetgrass. The story moves between past and present, the Native and the non-Native, history and myth, and tradition and survival, as the people of Mozhay Point endure traumatic historical events and federal Indian policies while looking ahead to future generations and the continuation of the Anishinaabe people.

The events that define these characters and their world, the births and deaths and binding loves, unfold with gentle pathos and wry humor, the cadences of minute detail and the sweep of history a matter of quiet confidence and unshowy grace for this gifted storyteller. — Star Tribune
Through the character of Margie Robineau, Linda LeGarde Grover has created an Ojibwe everywoman who not only births a daughter Crystal, but also revitalizes the small township of Sweetgrass by making family with her would be father-in-law. Grover’s novel tackles genealogy and kinship, Indian allotment and traditions, and ultimately love. A gorgeous read, an extraordinary novel! — LeAnne Howe, author of Shell Shaker

Set in northern Minnesota, The Road Back to Sweetgrass follows Dale Ann, Theresa, and Margie, a trio of American Indian women, from the 1970s to the present, observing their coming of age and the intersection of their lives as they navigate love, economic hardship, loss, and changing family dynamics on the fictional Mozhay Point reservation.

Linda LeGarde Grover is associate professor of American Indian studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth and a member of the Bois Forte band of Ojibwe. The Road Back to Sweetgrass has been awarded the Native Writers Circle of the Americas First Book Award; Grover has received the Flannery O’Connor Award and the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, whose previous recipients include Ann Patchett, Anne Tyler, and Toni Morrison.


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