The 25th-anniversary edition of "a novel that in the sweep and inevitability of its events...is a major contribution to Native American literature." (Wallace Stegner)

In the Two Medicine Territory of Montana, the Lone Eaters, a small band of Blackfeet Indians, are living their immemorial life. The men hunt and mount the occasional horse-taking raid or war party against the enemy Crow. The women tan the hides, sew the beadwork, and raise the children. But the year is 1870, and the whites are moving into their land. Fools Crow, a young warrior and medicine man, has seen the future and knows that the newcomers will punish resistance with swift retribution. First published to broad acclaim in 1986, Fools Crow is James Welch's stunningly evocative portrait of his people's bygone way of life.

The author of Fool's Crow and Indian Lawyer presents an extraordinary, evocative novel about a young Native American coming to terms with his heritage--and his dreams. "A nearly flawless novel about human life".--Reynolds Price, New York Times Book Review.

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For this Bison Books edition, James Welch, the acclaimed author of "Winter in the Blood" (1986) and other novels, introduces Mildred Walker's vivid heroine, Ellen Webb, who lives in the dryland wheat country of central Montana during the early 1940s. He writes, "It is a story about growing up, becoming a woman, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, within the space of a year and a half. But what a year and a half it is " Welch offers a brief biography of Walker, who wrote nine of her thirteen novels while living in Montana.

James Welch never shied away from depicting the lives of Native Americans damned by destiny and temperament to the margins of society. "The Death of Jim Loney" is no exception. Jim Loney is a mixed-blood, of white and Indian parentage. Estranged from both communities, he lives a solitary, brooding existence in a small Montana town. His nights are filled with disturbing dreams that haunt his waking hours. Rhea, his lover, cannot console him; Kate, his sister, cannot penetrate his world. In sparse, moving prose, Welch has crafted a riveting tale of disenfranchisement and self-destruction.

Between Worlds chronicles a real journey of discovery from the harsh winter of Georgia to the wilds of Mongolia by bicycle. A lone ride which began in Tbilisi and continued through Armenia, Iran, Pakistan, India and Nepal ending in Mongolia. It is one man's exploration of place and space, full of detailed architectural observations which question the nature of the spaces we inhabit and encourage consideration of the profound effects of architecture on our thoughts and habits. The personal journey of discovery, which is interwoven with the factual observations, mirrors much of the landscape travelled through and provides an insight into loneliness and displacement. The ongoing personal theme of a space or place in which to belong runs through the book as the reader is taken on a ride along the long, dusty, desert roads of Iran, and the spectacular mountain passes of Nepal. Combined with the colourful backdrop of India or the chaos of Pakistan, the book introduces characters along the way, from the Nepalese girl deity to the American evangelical Christian, turned Hindu. Each city or destination has its own flavour, dictated by the local people and buildings and the quality of its hospitality. Yurts, ashrams, temples and tents punctuate the ride like points on a dot to dot.

Raised in poverty on a Blackfeet reservation, prominent lawyer Sylvester Yellow Calf is now secure in the knowledge that his business and political success seems limitless--until a disgruntled convict, denied parole, threatens to destroy his career. A gripping suspense thriller . . . a complex psychological portrait".--San Francisco Chronicle.

Harriet Ryegate, the proper daughter of Massachusetts Puritans, is the first white woman to go far into the wilderness beyond the upper Missouri. With her husband, a Baptist minister, she seeks to convert the Blackfoot Indians to Christianity. But it is the Ryegates who are changed by their "journey into strangeness." Marcus Ryegate returns to Massachusetts obsessed by a beautiful Indian woman. For sermonizing about her, he pays a heavy price. Harriet, one of Mildred Walker's most fully realized characters, writes in her journal about "the effect of the Wilderness on civilized persons who are accustomed to live in the world of words." "If a Lion Could Talk" reveals the tragic lack of communication that stretches from Massachusetts to Missouri and beyond in the years before the Civil War--and the appalling heart of darkness that is close to home.

Edited by Ripley S. Hugo, Lois Welch, and James Welch, with an Introduction by William Matthews

Of Richard Hugo's Making Certain It Goes On, David Wagoner has written: "Richard Hugo spared himself (and us) no pains or joys in making the wonderful, vigorous original poems brought together in this single collection. His was and is a very important voice in modern American poetry."

Hugo was also an editor of the Yale Younger Poets series and a distinguished teacher and master of the personal essay. Now many of his essays have been assembled and arranged by Ripley Hugo, the poet's widow and a writer and teacher, and Lois and James Welch, writers and close friends of the poet. Together the essays constitute a compelling autobiographical narrative that takes Hugo from his lonely childhood through the war years and his working and creative life to an interview just before his death in 1982. William Matthews, also a friend of Hugo's, has written an introduction.

"A rare glimpse into the poet's creative process." —Library Journal