Tag Archives: a man in the wheatfield

Basque Fact of the Week: Robert Laxalt, the Voice of the American Basques

“My father was a sheepherder, and his home was the hills.” The opening to Robert Laxalt’s Sweet Promised Land resonates with so many of us, capturing not only the sheepherder life of his own father, but the experience of many Basque immigrants who made new homes in the American West. I discovered Laxalt’s books when […]

Robert Laxalt: Story of a Storyteller by Warren Lerude

Probably most Basque-Americans are vaguely familiar with who Robert Laxalt was, though the Laxalt name might be more recognizable because of his brother, Paul Laxalt, who was a Senator from and Governor of Nevada. Robert was a writer who distilled the Basque-American experience into simple but stark stories of life in the Nevada hills. His […]