Kent Nerburn

Biography
Kent Nerburn is an author, sculptor, and educator who has been deeply involved in Native American issues and education. He developed and directed an award-winning oral history project on the Red Lake Ojibwe reservation in Northern Minnesota. In addition to being a program evaluator for the Minnesota Humanities Commission and serving on their selection board, he has served as a consultant in curriculum development for the American Indian Institute in Norman, Oklahoma, and has been a presenter before various groups, including the National Indian Education Association, and the President’s blue-ribbon panel on Indian Education.

Nerburn has served as project director for two books of oral history — To Walk the Red Road and We Choose to Remember. He has also edited three highly acclaimed books on Native American subjects: Native American Wisdom, The Wisdom of the Great Chiefs, and The Soul of An Indian. Nerburn is also the author of Letters To My Son; Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder won the Minnesota Book Award for 1995; Simple Truths: Clear and Gentle Guidance on the Big Issues of Life; A Haunting Reverence: Meditations On a Northern Land; and Small Graces: The Quiet Gifts of Everyday Life.

Kent Nerburn holds a Ph.D. in both Theology and Art, and lives with his family in northern Minnesota.

Neither Wolf Nor Dog
Acclaimed author Kent Nerburn creates an incisive character study of a Native American elder, against the unflinching backdrop of contemporary reservation life and the majestic spaces of the western Dakotas. Nerburn draws us deep into the world of this elder, identified only as Dan, as we journey to where the vast Dakota skies overtake us and the whisperings of the wind speak of ancestral voices.

As this spellbinding story unfolds, Dan speaks eloquently on the power of silence, the difference between land and property, white people's urge to claim an Indian heritage, and the selling of sacred ceremonies. This is a story of fathers and sons, of the struggle for redemption after the loss of innocence, of distinct cultures on a common land.

An unlikely cross between Jack Kerouac and Black Elk Speaks, Neither Wolf nor Dog is full of humor, pathos, and insight. It takes us past the myths and stereotypes to the heart of the Native American experience and in doing so reveals America in a way few of us ever see. After reading this book, you will never look at America or the American Indian in the same way again.

Website Links:
Official Website
www.kentnerburn.com