James Welch--poet, novelist, documentary scriptwriter, and historical essayist--has long been acknowledged as a major voice in the Native American Renaissance. His book of poems, Riding the Earthboy 40 (1971), and his first two novels--Winter in the Blood (1974) and The Death of Jim Loney (1979)--brought him wide acclaim. Welch's third novel, Fools Crow (1986), earned him an American Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Pacific Northwest Book Award, and commercial success as well. Subsequent novels, The Indian Lawyer (1990) and The Heartsong of Charging Elk (2000), and the nonfiction Killing Custer: The Battle of the Little Bighorn and the Fate of the Plains Indians (1994) have enjoyed high critical praise and wide readership. Welch received a Lifetime Achievement Award, Native Writers Circle in 1997, and for The Heartsong of Charging Elk he won a Pacific Northwest Book Award in 2001.

Welch's works, which have been translated into several foreign languages, are read and...