Loosening the Seams: Interpretations of Gerald Vizenor

Native America can look to few more inventive or prolific contemporary writers than Gerald Vizenor. In this work he draws upon an eventful life: from mixedblood and passed-around city child in the Minneapolis of the Depression and World War II to Professor of Native American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Vizenor made his bow as a novelist with Bearheart (1978, revised 1990). In its wake have followed Griever: An American King in China (1986), The Trickster of Liberty (1988), The Heirs of Columbus (1991), Dead Voices (1992), and Hotlines Healers (1997).

He has also long shown a rich discursive flair, from early collections like Wordarrows (1978) and Earthdivers (1983), with their barbs at "Indian" stereotype, to Manifest Manners (1994) and Fugitive Poses (1998), which explore his notion of "postindian" Native identity. Add to these his poetry, stories, plays, anthologies, screenplays, and his autobiography Interior Landscapes (1990), and one has a voice at once full of Native irony and the postmodern turn.

The eighteen essays gathered in Loosening the Seams take the measure of Gerald Vizenor's achievement. Among the contributors are leading Native American scholars Louis Owens, Arnold Krupat, Elaine A. Jahner, and Barry O'Connell.