For the first time, two Minnesota writers have won National Book Awards. At a glittering event Wednesday night in New York City, Minneapolis writer Louise Erdrich took home her first National Book Award for "The Round House," which won the fiction award, and young-adult author William Alexander won for "Goblin Secrets," his debut fantasy novel.
Erdrich, 58, grew up in Wahpeton, N.D., and now lives in Minneapolis, where she owns Birchbark Books. "The Round House" is her 14th novel and the second in a planned trilogy set on a North Dakota reservation.
"I'm so thrilled," an effusive Erdrich said late Wednesday after finding out that she'd won a prize that had eluded her in the past. "This is my third nomination, and it's perfect. This is a book that talks about the real situation in the real world. I'm over the top and still can't believe it."
Erdrich was keen to use her national honor to embrace supporters as well as family and members of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in North Dakota. "This is for everyone in Minnesota and North Dakota," she said. "This is for us."
The first book of the trilogy, "The Plague of Doves," was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2009.
Erdrich has been a finalist for the National Book Award twice before -- in 1999 for a children's book, "The Birchbark House," and in 2001 for a novel, "The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse."
Alexander lives in Minneapolis and teaches at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He was notified of his National Book Award nomination in October, on his 36th birthday.
"It's fantastic and bizarre and amazing," Alexander said Wednesday in a phone call from New York, where the after-party had just begun. "They said my name, and my mind went blank and somehow I made it up to the front and I guess I said a few words.
