This summer, Minnesota Reads is bringing you books about the Northland, from the Northland and by Northland authors. The Northeastern Minnesota Book Awards (NEMBA) were established in 1988 to recognize books that "substantially represent northeastern Minnesota in the areas of history, culture, heritage, or lifestyle." Our guest is Victoria Richards whose first novel, Once Were Mountains (Beaver's Pond Press), won the NEMBA award in the Fiction category.
The book is an intertwining saga of the families of Carl Jarvinen, a Finnish immigrant trying to forget his past, and Leonard DeFoe, an Ojibwe man forbidden to remember his. Through a few generations, the story takes us from the Mesabi Range in northeastern Minnesota to Minneapolis.
Minnesota Reads is produced at KUMD with funding provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
