We interview Native American author Louise Erdrich, who attended Leonard Peltier’s murder trial in her hometown of Fargo, North Dakota, in 1977. The 2021 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction analyzes where it all went wrong for Peltier, while sharing how the experience affected her concept of justice, a theme which became a hallmark of her literary career. Along the way, Louise reads from her correspondence with Leonard, revealing new details about their friendship, before laying out what his freedom would mean to the Indigenous community in North America and around the world.
We interview Native American author Louise Erdrich, who attended Leonard Peltier’s murder trial in her hometown of Fargo, North Dakota, in 1977. The 2021 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction analyzes where it all went wrong for Peltier, while sharing how the experience affected her concept of justice, a theme which became a hallmark of her literary career. Along the way, Louise reads from her correspondence with Leonard, revealing new details about their friendship, before laying out what his freedom would mean to the Indigenous community in North America and around the world.