The Seed Keeper

A 2025 National Endowment for the Arts Big Reads Selection

Winner of the Minnesota Book Award

A haunting novel spanning several generations, The Seed Keeper follows a Dakh?ta family's struggle to preserve their way of life, and their sacrifices to protect what matters most.

Rosalie Iron Wing has grown up in the woods with her father, Ray, a former science teacher who tells her stories of plants, of the stars, of the origins of the Dakh?ta people. Until, one morning, Ray doesn't return from checking his traps. Told she has no family, Rosalie is sent to live with a foster family in nearby Mankato--where the reserved, bookish teenager meets rebellious Gaby Makespeace, in a friendship that transcends the damaged legacies they've inherited.

On a winter's day many years later, Rosalie returns to her childhood home. A widow and mother, she has spent the previous two decades on her white husband's farm, finding solace in her garden even as the farm is threatened first by drought and then by a predatory chemical company. Now, grieving, Rosalie begins to confront the past, on a search for family, identity, and a community where she can finally belong. In the process, she learns what it means to be descended from women with souls of iron--women who have protected their families, their traditions, and a precious cache of seeds through generations of hardship and loss, through war and the insidious trauma of boarding schools.

Weaving together the voices of four indelible women, The Seed Keeper is a beautifully told story of reawakening, of remembering our original relationship to the seeds and, through them, to our ancestors.

Honors for The Seed Keeper:

• Winner of the Minnesota Book Award in Fiction
• A BuzzFeed "Best Book of Spring"
• A Literary Hub "Most Anticipated Book of the Year"
• A Bustle "Most Anticipated Debut Novel"
• A Bon Appetit "Best Summer Read"
• A Thrillist "Best New Book of Spring"
• A Ms. Magazine "Best Book of the Year"
• A Books Are Magic "Most Anticipated Book of the Year"
• Named a "Most Anticipated Book of the Year" by The Millions
• A Daily Beast "Best Summer Read"

Author: Diane Wilson
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
Published: 03/09/2021
Pages: 392
Weight: 1.1lbs
Size: 8.45h x 5.50w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9781571311375


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 01/01/2021
Booklist 01/01/2021 pg. 46
Foreword 02/26/2021
Publishers Weekly 03/15/2021

About the Author
Diane Wilson (Dakh?ta) is the author of a memoir, Spirit Car: Journey to a Dakota Past, which won a Minnesota Book Award and was selected for the One Minneapolis One Read program, as well as a nonfiction book, Beloved Child: A Dakota Way of Life, which was awarded the Barbara Sudler Award from History Colorado. Her most recent essay, "Seeds for Seven Generations," was featured in the anthology A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota. Wilson has received a Bush Foundation Fellowship as well as awards from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Jerome Foundation, and the East Central Regional Arts Council. In 2018, she was awarded a 50 Over 50 Award from Pollen/Midwest. Wilson has served as the executive director for Dream of Wild Health and the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance, working to help rebuild sovereign food systems for Native people. She is a Mdewakanton descendent, enrolled on the Rosebud Reservation, and lives in Shafer, Minnesota.