Adrian C. Louis is an enrolled member of the Lovelock Paiute Indian Tribe and was born and raised in Nevada. A former journalist, he has been the editor of four tribal newspapers and since 1984 has been teaching English at Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota. He is the recipient of several awards as well as fellowships from the South Dakota Arts Council, the Bush Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. His 1989 book of poems, Fire Water World, was a winner of the Book Award from the Poetry Center at San Francisco State University.