For more than three decades, Louise Erdrich has won prizes, critical acclaim, and the hearts of readers the world over with her spellbinding novels of Native American life.

In 'Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country' she travels, with her 18-month-old daughter, to the terrain her ancestors inhabited for centuries: the lakes and islands of southern Ontario.

Summoning to life the Ojibwe's sacred spirits and songs, their language and sorrows, Erdrich considers the many ways in which her tribe - whose name derives from the word ozhibii'ige, 'to write' - have influenced her. Her journey, through a landscape of breathtaking beauty, links ancient stone paintings with an island where a recluse built an extraordinary library, and she reveals how both have transformed her.