No Lonesome Road is the landmark publication of the work of Appalachia’s legendary poet-activist Don West. A best-selling literary phenomenon, Appalachian historian, political militant and labor organizer, organic farmer and preacher, West is perhaps best known as the cofounder of the historic Highlander Folk School in Tennessee and the Appalachian South Folklife Center in West Virginia.

The book is divided into two sections—prose and poetry—and spans more than five decades of West’s literary career. No Lonesome Road is the best introduction to the remarkable times of Don West and a vital chronicle in Southern and Appalachian history, literature, culture and social justice activism.

The afterword by George Brosi is a stirring personal tribute to the contributions of West and also serves as a thoughtful reflection on the interactions between the radicals of the 1930s and those of the 1960s.

“ A powerful and important book”...West was...“one of the 20th century’s most important American poets and activists.”
Silas House, in the Lexington Herald

“The brilliant trajectory of Don West’s career as a radical Southerner in the hard-scrabble decades of the 1930s and beyond still glows like the tail of a comet. He wrote sermons and poetry that crackled with vibrancy, exalting Jesus as the revolutionary savior of the downtrodden and exhorting the least of these to rise up and assert their God-given equality. No Lonesome Road rescues from obscurity much of Don West’s published writing, and his words still resonate with freshness and immediacy.”
John Egerton, author of Speak Now Against the Day

“Don West, poet, prophet and political activist, was fired from teaching, exiled from his home state, boycotted and dismissed as a radical propagandist. Thanks to Brosi and Biggers for bringing his work for social justice back through his poetry and prose.”
Helen M. Lewis, past president of Appalachian Studies Association, and author of Mountain Sister

“If you don’t know anything about Don West, you haven’t really understood the root and rock of Appalachian literature or where it comes from.”
Charleston Sunday Gazette-Mail