Susan Power

Susan Power (born 12 October 1961) is a Standing Rock Sioux novelist and short story writer whose debut novel, The Grass Dancer (1994), won the PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Fiction and established her as one of the most important Native American novelists of her generation. The novel’s multigenerational portrait of a Sioux community in North Dakota — told through interconnected stories that move backward in time from the present to the nineteenth century — drew comparisons to Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine and announced a new voice in contemporary American fiction: lyrical, spiritually grounded, and deeply rooted in Lakota tradition.

Life

Power was born in Chicago and grew up on the city’s South Side. Her mother, Susan Kelly Power, was a member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and a prominent community activist; her father was of European descent. Power spent summers on the Standing Rock Reservation in North and South Dakota, and the tension between urban and reservation life — between assimilation and cultural preservation — became a central theme of her fiction.

She was educated at Harvard (B.A.) and Harvard Law School (J.D.), and attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She has taught at various universities and received numerous fellowships and awards, including a Radcliffe Bunting Fellowship.

The Grass Dancer (1994)

Power’s debut novel is structured as a series of interconnected stories that move backward through time, from the 1980s to the 1860s, centred on a Sioux community in North Dakota. The central character is Harley Wind Soldier, a young man who is learning the grass dance — a traditional dance of healing and spiritual renewal. Around him, the novel weaves stories of his ancestors and their community: stories of love, violence, spiritual power, jealousy, and the enduring presence of the past in the present.

The novel’s most memorable character is Red Dress, a spirit woman whose power reverberates across generations. The narrative structure — nonlinear, layered, with each chapter revealing connections to the others — mirrors the Lakota understanding of time as cyclical rather than linear. The spiritual world is presented as real and active: ghosts walk among the living, dreams carry messages, and the boundary between the natural and the supernatural is permeable.

The novel won the PEN/Hemingway Award and was widely praised for its narrative ambition, its lyrical prose, and its vivid portrayal of Lakota culture and spirituality. It was compared favourably to Erdrich’s work, though Power’s sensibility is more overtly spiritual and less ironic than Erdrich’s.

Roofwalker (2002)

Power’s short story collection continues her exploration of Native American identity and spiritual life. The stories range from realistic portraits of contemporary Native life in Chicago and on the reservation to stories that incorporate Lakota mythology and spiritual experience. “Roofwalker” — the title story — follows a woman who walks on the roofs of buildings in Chicago at night, a modern embodiment of a traditional figure.

Sacred Wilderness (2014)

Power’s second novel is a more experimental work that weaves together the stories of several women across different time periods, united by their connection to the land and to Native spiritual traditions. The novel explores colonialism, environmental destruction, and the persistence of Indigenous knowledge.

Critical Standing

Power’s reputation rests primarily on The Grass Dancer, which remains one of the essential novels of the Native American literary renaissance. She has published relatively little — three books in three decades — and the long gaps between publications have limited her visibility. But her work is taught in university courses on Native American literature, and The Grass Dancer is regarded as a major achievement in contemporary American fiction.

Collecting Power

The Grass Dancer (1994, Putnam) in first edition brings $20–$60. Roofwalker (2002) brings $10–$30. Power’s books are published in modest editions and are beginning to appreciate in value among collectors of Native American literature.