| nila northSun | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1951 Schurz, Nevada, U.S.A. |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Literary movement | Native American Renaissance |
| Notable work(s) | A snake in her mouth: poems 1974-96 |
nila northSun [sic] is a Native American poet and tribal historian, one of the best-known figures in the Native American Renaissance. Her gritty, realistic poems about life both on and off the reservation have made her one of the most widely read of all Native American poets.
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northSun was born in 1951 in Schurz, Nevada to a Shoshone mother and a Chippewa father, legendary Native American activist Adam Fortunate Eagle.[1]
Raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, she is a graduate of the University of Montana-Missoula.[2] In 2000 the "Friends of the Library" group at the University of Nevada honored her with the Silver Pen Award for outstanding literary achievement.[3] Then-Governor Kenny Guinn appointed her to the Nevada State Arts Council that same year.[2] In 2004, she received the "Indigenous Heritage Award in Literature" from ATAYL, an international agency.[2]
She now lives on the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Reservation in Fallon, Nevada and currently works as a grantswriter for the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony.[1]