Among the most memorialized women in American history, Sacajewea served as interpreter and guide for Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery. In this visionary novel, acclaimed Indigenous author Debra Magpie Earling brings this mythologized figure vividly to life, casting unsparing light on the men who brutalized her and recentering Sacajewea as the arbiter of her own history.

Raised among the Lemhi Shoshone, in this telling the young Sacajewea is bright and bold, growing strong from the hard work of “learning all ways to survive”: gathering berries, water, roots, and wood; butchering buffalo, antelope, and deer; catching salmon and snaring rabbits; weaving baskets and listening to the stories of her elders. When her village is raided and her beloved Appe and Bia are killed, Sacajewea is kidnapped and then gambled away to Charbonneau, a French Canadian trapper.

Written in lyrical, dreamlike prose, The Lost Journals of Sacajewea is an astonishing work of art and a powerful tale of perseverance—the Indigenous woman’s story that hasn’t been told.

The novel’s reclamation of American mythological figure Sacajewea and its brutal representation of the destructive impact of colonization—as well as its depiction of Native communities and individuals before making first contact with white men—is singular, striking, and will appeal to a wide and curious audience.

• Hundreds of thousands of students across the country are taught about Sacajewea each year; she represents a historical figure controlled by the white gaze and colonization, and during a time when writers and artists are reclaiming their cultures, identities, and histories, The Lost Journals of Sacajewea will be widely celebrated