Staff Report
Former UNM English professor Louis Owens died Thursday, July 27, from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest, said Albuquerque Sunport spokeswoman Maggie Santiago.
Owens was found in his car at the Sunport parking lot with a pistol and a note asking that his wife be notified.
Owens served as a presidential lecturer for the University for two years.
His work is widely acclaimed and he was a pioneer in the field of American Indian literature. His works of fiction The Bone Game, Dark River, The Sharpest Sight, Wolfsong and Nightland established him as one of the best selling authors of the American Indian genre.
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Born of Choctaw, Cherokee and Irish descent in Lampoc, Calif., in 1948, Owens also was widely respected for his nonfiction work on American Indian culture and his scholarship on the works of Pulitzer-Prize winning author John Steinbeck.
He was awarded a National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship in 1989 and received the Wordcraft Circle Writer of the year award in 1998 for “Mixedblood Messages: Literature, Film, Family, Place.”
Owens continued to teach after leaving UNM, returning to the University of California at Davis as a professor, where he had earned his doctorate.
Owens is survived by his wife Polly, and daughters Elizabeth and Alexandra.