He was awarded the 2007 National Medal of the Arts for his services to literature in Washington D.C.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (November 2007)
He grew up on Navajo, Apache and Pueblo reservations in Arizona and New Mexico. His father, of Kiowa heritage, was a painter, and his mother, whose background was English, French and Cherokee, was a writer.
A member of the Kiowa tribe, he was the first Native American to win a Pulitzer Prize.
He earned a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of New Mexico. At Stanford, he received a master's degree and a PhD, both in English literature.