Interview with Gerald Vizenor

• Other Authors: McCaffery, Larry (author), Vizenor, Gerald (Interviewee), (Department)
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: 1992
• Subjects: The Heirs of Columbus > book; Dead Voices: Natural Agonies in the New World > book; Griever: An American Monkey King in China > book; Matsushima: Pine Island > book; Summer in the Spring: Anishinaabe Lyric Poems and Stories > book; Postmodernism; Existentialism; Native American literature; Trickster narrative; Earthdiver > myth; Castle of Crossed Destinies > book; Shock the Monkey > song; Monkey > book; Journey to the West > book; Poetry; Haiku; A Stone; a Leaf; a Door: Poems > book; Sayonara > book; Native American music; Rashomon > film; Autobiographical fiction; Vision quest; For Those Who Come After: A Study of Native American Autobiography > book; Lyotard; Jean-Francois; Columbus; Christopher; Fuson; Robert H; Morison; Samuel Eliot; Calvino; Italo; Silko; Leslie Marmon; Kingston; Maxine Hong; Hersey; John; Waley; Arthur; Sousa; John Philip; Coover; Robert; Barth; London; Canada; British Columbia; anishina*
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11929/sdsu:29556

Larry McCaffery and Tom Marshall meet with Gerald Vizenor in Vizenor’s office at the University of California. The discussion begins with the concept of post-modernism and the place that Native American literature has in the field and how perhaps Native American literature as a whole helped inspire post-modernism. Much of the discussion focuses around Vizenor’s most recent novel, The Heirs of Columbus, published late the previous year in order to be available before the 500th anniversary of Columbus' arrival in the "New World". The discussion of that novel leads to a discussion of the place of the trickster, not only in Native American literature, but in other places as well, including in the Monkey King in Chinese literature (and Vizenor’s own novel on the character). Much of the latter part of the interview focuses around Native American voices, in terms of songs, poetry and autobiographical fiction. An edited version of the interview appears on pages 293 to 309 of Some Other Frequency: Interview with Innovative American Authors, ed. Larry McCaffery, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996. San Diego State University This project was supported by a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.