"Stories about life on Native American reservations often focus on the hardships — alcoholism, drugs, violence and poverty. In Rez Life: An Indian's Journey Through Reservation Life, Ojibwe writer David Treuer strives to capture stories about the beauty of life on reservations.

"We have such fierce attachments to these places," he tells NPR's Neal Conan. "That's what the book is about to some degree, the depth of affection and feeling we have for these places and to have a homeland."

The son of an Ojibwe mother and an Austrian holocaust survivor, Treuer grew up on the Leech Lake Reservation in Minnesota. Though he acknowledges that reservation life is challenging, he says most treatments of Native American history don't report the good parts of the experience."

Get the Story:
Ojibwe Writer Celebrates The Beauty Of 'Rez Life' (NPR 2/20)

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