Michael Dorris was an author and scholar of Indigenous American studies. He was the chair of Indigenous American studies at Dartmouth, helping found the program in 1972. In 1977, he became a Guggenheim Fellow in anthropology and cultural studies. His first novel, A Yellow Raft in Blue Water (1987), covers three generations of Indigenous American women, while his next work, The Broken Cord (1989), is a memoir focusing on Dorris’s adoptive son’s experiences with fetal alcohol syndrome. In 1971, Dorris became one of the first single American men to adopt a child, and his three adoptive children were all diagnosed with either fetal alcohol syndrome or effect (FAS and FAE) (Konigsberg, Eric. “Michael Dorris’s Troubled Sleep.” New York Magazine, 16 Jun. 1997). The Broken Cord won the National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction in 1989, and it was credited with instigating legislation aimed at warning against the dangers of drinking during pregnancy.

Dorris traced his ancestry to the Modoc tribe through his father, though he passed away before Dorris was born. Dorris married acclaimed Indigenous American author Louise Erdrich in 1981, and they collaborated on a number of works, including Love Medicine (1994), The Crown of Columbus (1991), and Route Two and Back (1981). In addition to his three adoptive children, whom Erdrich also adopted, Dorris and Erdrich had three children during their marriage. The couple separated in the mid-1990s. Dorris’s other notable works include Morning Girl (1999) and Paper Trail (1993), a collection of essays. Additionally, Cloud Chamber (1997) continues the story of A Yellow Raft in Blue Water. Though Dorris wrote primarily adult fiction and nonfiction, he wrote a few novels aimed at young adults and children, including The Window (1997) and Sees Behind Trees (1996).

Dorris died by suicide in 1997 after years of depression and the break-up of his marriage. His reputation has become controversial in the years since. At the time of his death, he was under investigation following allegations of sexual assault made by three of his daughters, adoptive and biological; his son, Sava, also alleged physical abuse (Konigsberg). In addition, his claims of Indigenous ancestry came under scrutiny, as his family name was not officially registered with the Modoc nation. This may reflect the particular circumstances of his ancestry; his father reputedly derived his surname from his stepfather and his Modoc heritage from his biological father, whom his mother did not marry due to the racism of the era (“Streitfeld, David. “A Writer’s Descent—a Dark Cloud of Suspicion Hung Over the Final Pages of Novelist Michael Dorris’ Life; Suicide May Have Been His Only Possible Ending.” The Seattle Times, 29 Jul. 1997). Regardless, Dorris’s choice to write about tribes other than the Modoc has also been criticized, as this is unusual within the Indigenous American community (Konigsberg). These accusations complicate Dorris’s legacy as a writer of Indigenous literature broadly and Indigenous children’s literature in particular.