New novel coming in 2021 from author of ‘The Revenant’

NEW YORK — The author of “The Revenant,” the historical novel adapted into the Oscar-winning movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, will be publishing his first new work of fiction in nearly 20 years.

Henry Holt and Company announced Thursday that Michael Punke’s “Ridgeline” will be released in June 2021. The book is set in the American West in the 1860s and “interweaves the perspectives of key U.S. Army officers, the family members they brought with them to settle the West, and the indigenous people who fought off the invasion of their land, including the legendary Crazy Horse,” according to Henry Holt.

“The Revenant,” his previous novel, came out in 2002 and told the story of a frontiersman in the Missouri Territory in the 1820s. It was adapted into a 2015 film of the same name and brought DiCaprio an Academy Award for best actor.

Punke is a former U.S. Ambassador to the World Trade Organization and is currently vice-president of global public policy at Amazon Web Services. His other books include the nonfiction releases “Fire and Brimstone: The North Butte Mining Disaster of 1917” and “Last Stand.”

The Associated Press