The Heartsong of Charging Elk

Doubleday Books, 2000. Hardcover. Like New/Very Good . 6x1x9. Inspired by actual historical fact, James Welch's tells the story of an Oglala Sioux who travels the extraordinary geographical and cultural distance from tribal life in the Black Hills of South Dakota to existence on the streets of Marseille. As a young boy, Charging Elk witnessed his people's massacre of Custer's Seventh Cavalry at Little Big Horn, followed by years of futile fighting and wandering until the Sioux were finally lured to the Pine Ridge reservation. But he prefers life in the Stronghold, living by his wits and skills in the old way. James Phillip Welch Jr. (1940 - 2003), who grew up within the Blackfeet and A'aninin cultures of his parents, was a Native American novelist and poet, considered a founding author of the Native American Renaissance. His novel Fools Crow (1986) received several national literary awards, and his debut novel Winter in the Blood (1974) was adapted as a film by the same name, released in 2013. In 1997 Welch received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas.