I'm Hungry: Longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction 2026
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'Where do we find a definition? Where do we find what a poet is?'
Fargo, 1971. Erdrich's narrator spends her days sneaking pocketsful of lasagna home from waitressing, missing the author friends who have floated out of town again, and wondering half-seriously if the poetry of local third graders is outdoing her own. In search of more life, more inspiration, and enough food to get through the next day, she embarks on a series of jobs, affairs, and travels that illuminate the wild eccentricities of the American national character as much as they do the injustices -- and resistances -- boiling around her in North Dakota.
I'm Hungry explores shocking violence, unearthly beauty, and voracious appetites of all kinds, from sexual hunger to the need for a life transfigured by poetry. It answers the question of 'what a poet is' with an indelible portrait of a young woman in a fractured community who finds her voice even as she encounters lovers, hustlers, and specters whose own hungers threaten to pull her under.
A bold, gorgeously textured, and unforgettable moral fable, this compelling novel will be revelatory to her legions of fans.
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