What is the title of N. Scott Momaday’s 1969 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel?

N. Scott Momaday’s 1969 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is House Made of Dawn.

Published in 1968, the novel follows Abel, a young Native American veteran returning to the Jemez Pueblo community in New Mexico after World War II. Its fragmented structure moves among characters, places, memories, and forms of knowledge as Abel struggles with alienation and the difficulty of returning home.

House Made of Dawn was the first novel by a Native American writer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Its success helped bring greater attention to Native American literature and contributed to the broader recognition of Indigenous voices in American letters.

Momaday later wrote The Way to Rainy Mountain, a nonfiction work combining Kiowa history, oral tradition, and personal reflection. That book is frequently mentioned alongside House Made of Dawn, but it is not the Pulitzer-winning novel.