author
Harvey Fergusson
1890–1971
Best known for vivid novels of the American Southwest, this New Mexico-born writer also worked as a journalist and screenwriter. His fiction often explored frontier life, cultural change, and the tensions between old worlds and new ones.
1 Audiobook
The Blood of the Conquerors
by Harvey Fergusson
About the author
Born in Albuquerque in 1890, he grew up in a family deeply tied to New Mexico public life; his father, Harvey B. Fergusson, was an attorney and congressman. After graduating from Washington and Lee University in 1911, he went into newspaper work and built an early career as a reporter and editor.
He became known as a novelist whose work drew strongly on the history and landscape of the Southwest. He wrote fiction about the region's conflicts and transformations, including the trilogy Followers of the Sun, and his reputation rests largely on the way he brought New Mexico's people and past into American literature.
Later, he also worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter. He died in 1971, leaving behind a body of work that helped define the literary image of the Southwest for many readers.