Gerald Vizenor: Texts and Contexts

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EDITED BY Deborah L. Madsen and A. Robert Lee Gerald Vizenor T E X T S A N D C O N T E X T S work demonstrates a tremendous ingenuity and fire, a survival through wit and grace. Vizenor is unique in the sense that he does not vaguely remind you of any one else nor does he share any of the common banal assumptions that disfigure tradition of American writing that spans from the African-American and Native American comic narratives to Will Rogers, Mark Twain, and Richard Pryor.” —Ishmael Reed “Like Coyote and the other great trickster figures of the Native American nations, Gerald Vizenor likes to stir things up. What he likes best to stir up are the hoary notion that the Indian stands for something single and simple—savagery, tragedy, or tribal wisdom—and the idea that life can be lived without amazing, painful (and funny) contradictions every step of the way. “In book after book of poetry, essays, and fiction, Vizenor has expounded and played dazzling literary tricks with his Native heritage, showing Indian thought coalescing with, illuminating, and running nimbly ahead of contemporary literary and cultural theory. Out of the pain of Native history, he coins powerful cultural —‘not just survival,’ he insists, ‘but a quality and condition of remaining imaginative Gerald Vizenor, • • Deborah L. Madsen A. Robert Lee Gerald Vizenor ...