The struggles and displacement of Native Americans was studied in a new way during the author reading.

This year, the English department welcomed Heather Sharfeddin to the Linfield family.

Along with her instruction in the classroom, Sharfeddin contributes to the academic arena with her various published novels as well as essays in literary magazines.

On Oct. 14, Sharfeddin kicked off the year’s author readings in Nicholson Library, with excerpts from her latest novel, “A Delicate Divide.”  The novel speaks to the side swept crisis of the displaced Native American in the United States with a perspective twist that shows us racial tensions from white characters who fear a water compact that would take away their natural land water rights.

The novel follows various characters and their experiences on the Flathead Indian reservation.  What makes the novel so compelling, as was apparent by the laughs and tight breaths of those present in the Austin Reading Room, is Sharfeddin’s elegant way of bringing emotion regarding the charged topic of racism and colonization to the page in her relatable yet challenging characters.

Sharfeddin writes this novel with an extensive pool of experience and motivation coming from her childhood in Idaho near an Indian reservation as well as her doctoral research focusing on racial tensions in the Interior West.

Regarding the origins of the novel she said, “I can’t not write about Indians if I’m going to write a story about the contemporary west that I understand.”

The story of the water compact stemmed from the personally witnessed conflict that her mother and father faced as owners of a ranch on an Indian reservation in Montana.

Legislation was recently passed in favor of the Native American Reservation being given back their rights to the water.

Sharfeddin shared that though it did not affect her family directly, it did inflict monetary damage to neighbors that rely on the water for various forms of income and production.

The excerpts Sharfeddin read entranced the audience with her subtle humor that played off of naturally awkward interactions between opposing racial groups.  This is embodied by the character, Kayla Azkari, an Arab-American who is too white to be accepted by the natives and too dark to be accepted as white.

Although the humor is present in Sharfeddin’s writing, it is abruptly met with the anger and frustration that cannot be avoided when addressing racial tension.

This marriage of two contrasting emotions is captured beautifully, as could be seen by the audience’s reception of the vibrant characters.

The moral and social problems these characters face are passionately written, with a deep knowledge by the author coming from her personal experience and extensive research prior to writing the novel.